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CHARLES BULFINCH 
eA rchitect and Citizen 











CHURCH AT LANCASTER, MASSACHUSETTS 





“ 


CHARLES BULFINCH 
Architect and Citizen 


BY 
CHARLES A. PLACE 


With Illustrations 





BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
The Riverside Press Cambridge 
1925 


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PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. 


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PREFACE 


HE task of gathering accurate data and illustrations of Bul- 
ie, architecture grew out of a purely personal interest; and 
the photographs, lacking professional skill, are the result of an ac- 
quired use of the camera that buildings seen or pictures of those long 
since removed might have some representation. 

The architectural task developed an understanding and apprecia- 
tion of a gentleman whose character was noble and whose taste was 
for the beautiful and the true. As an architect Charles Bulfinch is 
known, but the dominant motive of his life was to be a true citizen. 
Few people realize the value of his service to his native town — long, 
faithful, unstinted. And so the life has come to have its part with the 
architecture, and the story is written in the hope that it may help 
others to a larger estimate of what Bulfinch was and what he did. 

The citizenship research has involved an amount of labor out of all 
proportion to the record here set down. Bulfinch kept no diary, wrote 
few letters of any kind, and almost nothing of him written by others 
has been found. The man lived in his work and there we must seek 
him. A mass of material has been searched, including the Town and 
Selectmen’s records and many obscure papers, which, while it consti- 
tutes the very warp and woof of the story, still is very inadequate in 
any attempt to make Charles Bulfinch live and move during the pe- 
riod of his unique service to the growing town. For personal coloring 
we seek almost in vain. 

Acknowledgment is made of the help derived from The Life and 
Letters of Charles Bulfinch, by Miss Ellen 8. Bulfinch, Houghton, Mifflin 
& Company, 1896, and to many individuals who by their kindness have 


made this work possible as well as a delight. 





CONTENTS 


. Earty YEARS 
. BEGINNING OF WorK AND MARRIAGE 
. ELectep SELECTMAN — THE Connecticut Statr House 


. FRANKLIN PLACE AND THE MASSACHUSETTS STATE HOUSE 


‘THE GREAT SELECTMAN’ 


. A Variety or Designs 

. RESIDENCES BEFORE THE WaR 

. THe GREAT SELECTMAN IN WAR AND PEACE 

. Designs IN ARCHITECTURE, 1812-1817 

. Tur Nationau CaPitot AND A Few DEsiens 


. Last YEARS 


INDEX 


118 
147 
191 
209 
24] 
276 
289 


Ys 





ILLUSTRATIONS 


Cuurcn AT LANCASTER, MASSACHUSETTS Frontispiece 


From a photograph by C. A. Place 


Susan ApTHORP 
From portrait by Blackburn, owned by J. Templeman Coolidge 


CHARLES BULFINCH 
From portrait by Mather Brown, owned by Francis V. Bulfinch 


Map or Boston, 1789 
From the first Boston Directory, 1789 


JOSEPH BARRELL 
From Copley pastel in Worcester Art Museum 


Houuis STREET CuurRcH 
From original sketch by Bulfinch 


East BRAINTREE CHURCH 
From photograph 

Hannan Butrrncn (Mrs. Cuarues BuLFINcH) 
From portrait owned by Dr. George G. Bulfinch 


Freperat Hatt, New York 
From original sketch by Bulfinch 


Bracon Hitt CotuMn 


From a lithograph made in 1857 by J. H. Bufford after a drawing by J. R. Smith made in 1811 


BRATTLE STREET Cuurcn, Puupir Enp 
From photograph at the Bostonian Society 


Cuurcu, TAUNTON, MASSACHUSETTS 
From sketch owned by Old Colony Historical Society, Taunton, Massachusetts 


Cuurcu, PirtsrieELD, MASSACHUSETTS 
From an old cut 


Oxp StatE House, Hartrorp, CONNECTICUT 
From photograph by C. A. Place 


Upper Corripor, OLD CoNNECTICUT STATE House 
From photograph by C. A. Place 

Houss or REPRESENTATIVES, OLD CoNNEcTICUT STATE HousE 
From photograph by C. A. Place 

SENATE CHAMBER, OLD CoNNECTICUT STATE HOUSE 
From photograph by C. A. Place 


Tuer ARCH AND FRANKLIN MEMORIAL, TONTINE BUILDINGS 
From photograph at the Bostonian Society 


[ ix ] 


3 


13 


Le 


21 


22 


25 


30 


o4 


35 


36 


45 


48 


49 


51 


57 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


PLAN OF TONTINE CRESCENT 
From Massachusetts Magazine, 1794 


MEDAL AWARDED TO BULFINCH, BY THE PROPRIETORS OF THE BOSTON 


THEATRE, SHOWING First THEATRE 
From photograph 


SECOND THEATRE 
From an old engraving 


A Nortu-SIpE HousE on FRANKLIN PLACE 
From photograph at Bostonian Society 


Tue Agcy AND Front or Boston Lisprary, FRANKLIN PLACE 


From original drawing by Bulfinch 


Tue Arcu, TonTINE BUILDINGS 
From photograph at Bostonian Society 


FRANKLIN Puace, Looking Down 


From photograph at Bostonian Society 


MASSACHUSETTS STATE House 
From Pendleton Lithograph at Bostonian Society 


Dog oF StTaTE Houssr, Boston 
From photograph by C. A. Place 

Doric Hatt, State Housnz, Boston 
From photograph by C. A. Place 


Ture Otp SENATE CHAMBER, STATE House, Boston 
From photograph by C. A. Place 


Tur Op House or REPRESENTATIVES, STATE House, Boston 
From photograph by C. A. Place 


GALLERY AND CEILING, HousE or REPRESENTATIVES 
From photograph by C. A. Place 


House oF REPRESENTATIVES ABOUT 1852 
From Gleason’s Pictorial 


Councrit CHAMBER, STATE House, Boston 
From photograph by C. A. Place 


OLD SENATE GALLERY, STATE House, Boston 
From photograph by C. A. Place 


Letter or Butrincu on Massacuusetts STATE House (1795) 
From original in Massachusetts Archives 


Navy Orricr, Somerset Housr, LONDON 
From an engraving published in London, 1828 


STRAND Front, SOMERSET House 
From an engraving published in London, 1828 


[ x ] 


59 


61 
62 
65 


71 


77 
78 
79 
80 
82 
83 
84 
85 
87 
88 
88 
91 


92 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


ALMSHOUSE, LEVERETT STREET, BOSTON 
From an old engraving 


Map or ‘Neck,’ Boston 
From Hales’s Street Maps of Boston, 1814 


PLAN FOR DEVELOPMENT OF THE Mitu Ponp, Boston 
From original, probably by Bulfinch 


InpiA WuarF Stores, East END 
From photograph by C. A. Place 


Court-Houssr, WorcssTER, 1801 
From original drawing by Bulfinch 


ELEVATION OF THE MASSACHUSETTS STATE PRISON 
From the Massachusetts Archives 


Starrs, MASSACHUSETTS STATE PRISON 
From photograph by C. A. Place 


Faneuit HALL BEFORE ENLARGEMENT 


From an old engraving 


FaNeEvuIL HALL AS ENLARGED BY BULFINCH 
From an old engraving 


Starrs Detain, Fanrurt HAuLu 
From photograph by C. A. Place 


IntTeERIOR, FaNEvIL HALu 
From photograph by C. A. Place 


Don JuAN STOUGHTON RESIDENCE 
From photograph (C. A. P.) of an old painting 


Hoty Cross Cuurcu, Boston 
From photograph at Bostonian Society 


SAINT STEPHEN'S CHurcH (Catnoxic), Boston, FORMERLY ‘NEW 


Nortu’ CuHurcu 
From photograph by C. A. Place 


Beurry, HALLOWELL, MAINE 
From a photograph 


Curist Cuurcu Spire, Boston 
From a photograph 
UNITED STATES BANK, Boston 
From a plate in The American Builder’s Companion (1806) 


Boyuston Hatt anp Market, Boston 
From photograph owned by the Massachusetts Historical Society 


SPIRE, FEDERAL STREET CuurcH, Boston 
From photograph at Bostonian Society 


[ xi ] 


98 


108 


119 


133 


136 


139 


141 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


InTERIOR, FEDERAL STREET CHURCH 
From photograph at Bostonian Society 


Court-Houssr, Boston, 1810: AFTERWARDS THE Crty HALL 


From photograph at Bostonian Society 


AcADEMY BuILDING, Now Pusuic Lisrary, Portsmouth, N.H. 
From photograph by courtesy of Rev. Alfred Gooding 


BaAaRRELL MANSION 
From an old sketch at McLean Hospital, Waverley, Massachusetts 


Hawi, BARRELL Mansion 
From photograph at McLean Hospital 


Drawinc-Room, BARRELL MANSION 
From photograph at McLean Hospital 


JONATHAN Mason Mansion 
From a drawing made in 1836 


Fay Houser, Rapciuirre CoLueGE, CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS 
From photograph by J. W. Lowes 


First Harrison Gray Orts House, 1796 
From sketch, probably by Bulfinch, in the Otis papers 


ORIGINAL Cornice, First Otis House 
From photograph by C. A. Place 


Lower Hatt, First Ot1s House 
From photograph by C. A. Place 


Upper Hatu, First Otis House 
From photograph by C. A. Place 


Dininc-Room Mantet, First Or1s Houss 
From photograph by C. A. Place 


CorNER, CoLoniaAL Dames Room, First Orrs House 
From photograph by C. A. Place 
SecoND Harrison Gray Otis Houses, 1800 
From photograph by C. A. Place 
Tuirp Otis Houss, 1805-06 
From photograph by C. A. Place 
No. 4 Park STREET 
From photograph 
ParRK STREET AND THE STATE Houss, ABouT 1870 


From photograph at Bostonian Society 


ELEVATION, 1-4 Park STREET 
From original by Bulfinch, owned by Dr. John C. Warren 


Howarp Hovusr, Butrincu PLAacE 
From photograph at Bostonian Society 


lexis! 


142 


143 


146 


148 


149 


150 


153 


155 


157 


158 


159 


160 


161 


163 


165 


166 


169 


170 


171 


173 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


House oF STEPHEN HiacarInson, Jr., No. 87 Mount VERNON STREET 177 
From photograph by C. A. Place 


Nos. 55 anp 57 Mount VERNON STREET 178 
From photograph by C. A. Place 


Lower Hatt, 13 Cuestnut STREET 180 
From photograph by C. A. Place 


Hatuway or No. 55 Mount VERNON STREET 181 
From photograph by C. A. Place 


Nos. 18, 15, AND 17 CHESTNUT STREET 182 
From photograph by C. A. Place 


Breproom MantTe., 15 CHESTNUT STREET 183 
From photograph by C. A. Place 


PARK STREET, SHOWING AMorRY HOUSE ON THE CORNER 184. 
From photograph at Bostonian Society 


AN IntTERIoR, 15 CHESTNUT STREET 185 
From photograph by C. A. Place 


AN InTERIOR, 17 CHESTNUT STREET 186 
From photograph by C. A. Place 


Tuomas Perkins Houses, Joy STREET 187 
From an old photograph 


CoLONNADE Row, TREMONT STREET 189 
From photograph at Bostonian Society 


DESIGN FoR A City HovusE 191 
From original by Bulfinch 


TREMONT STREET MAL 196 
From a water-color in the Boston Public Library, believed to have been painted by a daugh- 
ter of General Knox about 1800 


Outp Exim, Boston ComMMON 197 
From an engraving by J. Kidder in Polyanthos, Boston, 1813 

TREMONT STREET ABOVE CouRT STREET 206 
From an old cut 

Tuirp Latin Scnuoout BuiLpina, 1812 209 
From an old cut 

Untversity Hay, Harvarp, As ORIGINALLY BUILT 210 
From a cut in Josiah Quincy’s History of Harvard University 

University HAL AFTER 1842 211 
From a photograph 

Cuapet, Untversity Hau 213 


From photograph by C. A. Place 


[xiii | 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


New Soutu Cuurcn, Boston 


From a photograph owned by the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities 


IntTERIOR, NEw Soutu Cuurcu 
From an old photograph 


PLAN FOR A JAIL 
From the original by Bulfinch 


Biake-TucKERMAN Housk 
From photograph at Bostonian Society 
Portico or LANCASTER CHURCH 
From photograph by C. A. Place 


LANCASTER CuurRcH PorcH 
From photograph by C. A. Place 


INTERIOR OF LANCASTER CHURCH 
From photograph by C. A. Place 


Puurit, LANCASTER CHURCH 
From photograph by C. A. Place 


McLean Hospitat, tHE REMODELLED BARRELL MANSION 
From photograph at the Hospital at Waverley 


PEARSON Hai, ANDOVER, MASSACHUSETTS 
From photograph by courtesy of Phillips Academy 


Tutrp But~pine, Puimires AcapEMy, ANDOVER 
From photograph by courtesy of Phillips Academy 


MassacHusetts GENERAL Hospirat, Boston 
From photograph by C. A. Place 


Lower Corripor Stairs, MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL 


From photograph by C. A. Place 


A Sreconp-FLoor Corripor, MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL 


From photograph by C. A. Place 
Pencit DRAWING OF THE CAPITOL AT WASHINGTON 


From the original by Bulfinch 


West FRONT or THE CaAPritoL 
From original drawing by Bulfinch, published in 1821 


East FRONT oF THE CAPITOL 
From original drawing by Bulfinch, published in 1826 


DEsIGN For Rotunpba, CAprrou 
From original, probably by Bulfinch 
Fioor Puan, Caprrou 


From an engraving in Peter Force’s The National Calendar, 1823 


WEstT StTEps, CAPITOL 
From an engraving in N. P. Willis’s American Scenery, 1840 


lexiv al 


214 


216 


233 


234 


235 


236 


238 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


UNITARIAN Cyurcu, WASHINGTON 
From a photograph 


Cuurcu, Perrersoro, N.H. 
From photograph, by courtesy of Rev. Arthur H. Winn 


PLAN For Puupit, UNITARIAN CHURCH, WASHINGTON 
From the original by Bulfinch 


INTERIOR, PeTERBORO CHURCH 
From photograph by C. A. Place 


MAINe State House 
From a drawing 


MaIne State Hovust 
From a photograph 

PLAN FOR DoME or MAINE StaTE HousE 
From the original drawing by Bulfinch 


CHARLES BULFINCH ABOUT 1842 
From a drawing by Alvan Clark 


BowDoIN SQUARE IN 1822 
From drawing in 1922 for the Bostonian Society 


PLATE IN CRUNDEN’S OriGinAL Designs (LONDON, 1767) 


From copy of the book in Bulfinch’s possession 


DesiGn By WILLIAM THOMAS, SUGGESTING DOME FOR MASSACHUSETTS 


GENERAL HospItTau 


From copy of Original Designs in Architecture (London, 1783) owned by Bulfinch 


PLAN AND ELEVATION FROM Piaw, Lonpon, 1795 
From copy of book owned by Bulfinch 


SKETCH OF PornteD ArcH By BULFINCH 
From Bulfinch’s sketch in his copy of Essays on Gothic Architecture 


269 


270 


271 


281 


284 


288 





CHARLES BULFINCH 
eArchitect and Citizen 


CHAPTER I 
EARLY YEARS 
N what we know as Bowdoin Square in Boston, Charles Bulfinch 
| was born on August 8, 1763, in a house built by his grandfather at 
the time of his marriage to Judith Colman. We have a fairly good 
idea of the house as it stood with its companions in the Square about 
one hundred years ago, after it was enlarged and remodeled at the 
close of the eighteenth century, and a more intimate touch of home 
and gardens in a description written about the time of Bulfinch’s re- 
turn to his birthplace at the close of his life. We can form no clearer 
idea of the house as it was at the time of his birth. 

The man who built this house, Dr. Thomas Bulfinch, was the son 
of Adino, a well-to-do Boston merchant, the first known Bulfinch 
ancestor in America. His son Thomas was likewise a physician. 
Both men were well trained abroad, the former at London and Paris, 
and the latter at London and Edinburgh, and their letters reveal high 
ideals and strong moral convictions. The second Thomas was gradu- 
ated from Harvard College in 1749, and the valedictory oration 
delivered by him is still preserved. With reasonable pride, because 
the test had been very severe, he informs his father that he was 
honored with a degree of Doctor of Physic in the University of 
Edinburgh. On the death of his father, December 2, 1757, he aban- 
doned a contemplated Italian trip and returned to Boston to take up 


[1] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


his father’s practice, and on September 13, 1759, was married to 
Susan Apthorp whose father in his day was called the richest man in 
Boston, to whose interest and generosity the present King’s Chapel is 
due in large measure. Blackburn in one of his best portraits shows 
Miss Apthorp near the time of her marriage, a woman of beauty, 
refinement, and animation, and she has been described as having 
marked intellect and cultivation. Her brother, the Reverend East 
Apthorp, was rector of Christ Church, Cambridge, removing to 
England in 1764, and for a time was in charge of Saint Mary-le-Bow, 
London. 

With such inheritance Charles Bulfinch was born into the simple yet 
noble life of culture and motive. He grew up in the town of Boston 
with its truly English spirit of liberty and right, amid the turbulence 
of agitation and the war for Independence. Of the earliest years of 
his development there is little beyond what the general conditions of 
the time suggest. A hint of the taste that was to dominate his life is 
found in a little pen-and-ink sketch of two columns made at the age of 
ten, but no marked ability is displayed. His family was connected with 
Kking’s Chapel, and it was his father, as senior warden and acting for 
the congregation, who on November 18, 1787, ordained James Free- 
man to be ‘rector, minister, etc.,’ of the Society. 

In the brief autobiographical sketch Bulfinch speaks of his paternal 
ancestry and then proceeds to mention events in his life. 

‘I was born in 1763, considered as a year of triumph; the peace with 
France having just been effected, after a successful war, in which 
Canada had been conquered, and all fear of a formidable enemy on the 
frontier had been removed. My earliest recollections are of the alter- 
cations and political disputes occasioned by the attempts of the mother 


country to raise a revenue in the colonies, of the resistence to the 


[ 2 ] 








BLACKBURN PORTRAIT USAN APTHORP 





ao * 


EARLY YEARS 


Stamp Act, of the destruction of the tea in Boston harbour, of the 
firing upon the citizens in State street, then called King street, March 
5, 1770, of the blockade of the port, and removal of the Custom house 
to Salem, of the arrival of the British troops and of their encampment 
on the Common and Fort hill; of the fight at Lexington, and the battle 
of Bunker hill, which I saw the progress of from the roof of our dwell- 
ing-house: of the continuance of the siege of Boston and of the 
evacuation of the town by British troops on March 17, 1776. 

‘After the return of the inhabitants to Boston the town schools 
being reorganized, I was readmitted to the Latin School under Mr. 
Hunt and fitted for College, which I entered in 1778, and was gradu- 
ated in 1781. The class consisted of only 27, and it now appears 
extraordinary to me that the parents of even that small number could 
determine to pursue an expensive education of their children at a time 
when war was raging and business interrupted, but it proves the 
general confidence in the success of the cause. This small class 
included several who have done honor to their college and have been 
distinguished in public life; Dudley A. Tyng, Judge Davis, Judge 
Paine, the Reverend B. Howard and the Honorable Samuel Dexter 
and others. 

‘My disposition would have led me to the study of physic, but my 
father was averse to my engaging in the practice of what he considered 
a laborious profession, and I was placed in the counting-room of 
Joseph Barrell, Esq., an intimate friend and esteemed a correct 
merchant; but unfortunately the unsettled state of the times prevented 
Mr. Barrell from engaging in any active business, so that except for 
about three months of hurried employment, when he was engaged in 
victualling a French fleet in our harbour, my time passed very idly 
and I was at leisure to cultivate a taste for Architecture, which was 


[5 ] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


encouraged by attending to Mr. Barrell’s improvement of his estate 
and (improvements) on our dwelling-house and the houses of some 
friends, all of which had become exceedingly dilapidated during the 
war. Coming of age about this time, an Uncle, George Apthorp, died 
in England, and a portion of his property, about 200 pounds sterling, 
came to my parents, who devoted it to my use for a visit to Europe. I 
accordingly embarked in June, 1785, and returned Jan. 1787. The time 
of my visit to Europe was passed, partly in London and in visits to 
friends of my family in different parts of England; in a visit to France 
and through that country to Italy. At Paris I tarried some time to view 
its buildings and other objects of curiosity, to which I was introduced 
by letters from the Marquis La Fayette and Mr. Jefferson, then minister 
there. From Paris I proceeded in the spring of 1786 through Nantz 
and Bordeaux and by the canal of Languedoc to Marseilles and then 
to Antibes, from which place I crossed in an open felucca to Genoa, 
thence to Leghorn and Pisa, by Viterbo and Sienna to Rome, where 
I remained three weeks, and then returned by Bologna, Florence, 
Parma, Placentia, and Milan over the Alps by Mont Cenis, to 
Lyons and again to Paris: after a short stay there, I returned to 
London by way of Rouen and Dieppe, crossing the channel to Brighton. 
This tour was highly gratifying, as you may well suppose. I was 
delighted in observing the numerous objects and beauties of nature 
and art that I met with on all sides, particularly the wonders of 
Architecture, and the kindred arts of painting and sculpture, as my 
letters to friends at home very fully express; but these pursuits did 
not confirm me in any business habits of buying and selling; on the 
contrary, they had a powerful adverse influence on my whole after 
life.’ 

These letters, all too few and with little description, throw some 


[6] 


EARLY YEARS 


light on the European trip. We infer that his is ever the artist’s eye, 
and that architecture in its full sense of building and decoration is the 
wonder he seeks. In his first letter he writes, ‘I have been engaged 
ever since my arrival in gratifying my curiosity with the sight of 
building, ete.’ There is a touch of the hazard of war and the un- 
settled conditions following the Revolution in a letter of December 
12th of the same year. Evidently his father had suffered some loss as a 
consequence of the British occupation and had sought for settlement. 
In the same letter he writes regarding the King’s Chapel plate: 
‘I was in hopes I should receive some further documents respecting the 
Church plate. ... The Doctor has been allowed by government a sum 
fully equivalent to his house in Boston, so that he can now have no 
plausible reason for detaining the plate, but as he still means to keep it, 
I should be glad to be furnished with such papers as would enable me 
to compel a return of it.’ Those who are familiar with the history of 
King’s Chapel will recall that, when the last Royalist rector, Dr. 
Caner, departed, he took the Chapel plate with him, and that it was 
never returned. 

We cannot determine at what time Bulfinch went to Paris, or how 
long he remained, though he writes in the letter dated December 12, 
1785, ‘This week I mean to set off for Paris,’ indicating his intention 
of remaining on the Continent three or four months. Under date of 
May 2, 1786, he writes from Marseilles, ‘It is now three months since 
I have received any letters from Boston.’ We must conclude that at 
least three months was consumed in his visit to Paris and from there 
to Marseilles. 

His journey can be traced from L’Orient to Nantes where he spent 
two days viewing its curiosities, etc., among which were public build- 
ings and ‘public walks.’ ‘Every town in France has one or more public 


kta 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


walks, shaded with trees and kept in constant repair; these walks are 
usually surrounded by the public buildings of the place, which are an 
additional beauty at the same time that they serve as a shelter from 
the wind; I own myself much pleased with this mode of public walks.’ 

The theatre at Bordeaux he calls the most superb in France, a noble 
structure of the Corinthian order, and cost ‘only 130,000 pounds.’ 
From Bordeaux he passed rapidly to Toulouse and embarked on the 
Languedoc Canal in order ‘to have an idea of that great work.’ He did 
not tarry at Narbonne, but pushed on to Montpellier which he found 
beautiful in situation and climate. Nimes claimed his natural interest. 
He writes: “This city was formerly the capital of a Roman colony. 
Many ancient remains announce the grandeur of its former masters. 
The present inhabitants show with exultation the remains of a very 
extensive Roman amphitheatre, and several temples; one of which is 
entire, and is esteemed a perfect model of Corinthian architecture.’ No 
letter appears after the one of May 10, 1786, at Marseilles — really 
at Leghorn as Bulfinch informs his mother later — till the letter in 
August from London. According to the family tradition he was 
moved to tears on his first sight of Saint Peter’s, but there is no record 
of the three weeks’ stay in Rome or of the famous cities visited en 
route. If he actually set out for Paris after writing the letter of 
December 12th, we must conclude the whole journey from London to 
his return there occupied over seven months. 

The only record of his stay in England in the fall of 1786 before he 
sailed for Boston, probably about the first of December, concerns his 
portrait painted at that time. He wrote: “It is the work of Mr. Brown 
[Mather Brown]; you will find it very rough, but that is the modish 
style of painting, introduced by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Mr. Copley, 
indeed, paints in another manner, his pictures are finished to the ut- 


[8] 





S BULFINCH 


CHARLE 
inted by Mather Brow 


1786 


London, 


n, 


Pa 








EARLY YEARS 


most nicety, but then — they are very dear.’ Something of the under- 
standing of the artist is seen in this comment; we must remember that 
Copley had removed to England in 1774 where he remained until his 
death. This portrait may be considered a good likeness and is interest- 
ing when compared with a miniature painted about the same time as 
one of Mrs. Bulfinch. Both are interesting examples of miniature art, 
particularly that of Mrs. Bulfinch, but probably not by Malbone as 
held in the family tradition. The powdered wig and ruffled shirt be- 
token the ‘gentleman’ of his time, but the face reveals a youth of fine 
character, artistic taste and refinement. 

When Charles Bulfinch returned to Boston in January, 1787, it was 
to a town of some fifteen thousand inhabitants just beginning to re- 
cover from the stagnation caused by the war. The Royal Governors 
were gone forever. The houses for the most part were simple and 
quaint with their true homely charm. The streets were even narrower 
than in 1815 after many had been widened, and without sidewalks, 
though a few street lights were maintained at public and private 
expense. There were gambrel-roofed houses and a few mansions, the 
most notable of which were the Hutchinson house, residence of 
Governor Hutchinson, the Clark-Frankland house, suggesting the 
romantic story of Agnes Surriage — both built of brick and situated 
in North Square — the Hancock house of stone on Beacon Hill, and 
the Faneuil house of brick, home of Peter Faneuil, standing opposite 
the burying-ground on Tremont Street. Of public buildings there 
were the State House in State Street, old Faneuil Hall, the Province 
House, official residence of the Royal Governor after 1716 and 
formerly the residence of Peter Sargent, and a few notable churches the 
best of which are still standing — King’s Chapel, Christ Church, and the 
Old South. Brattle Street Church, beautiful within and architectur- 

[pily 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


ally interesting, built in 1772-73, has been removed. Cows grazed 
upon the Common and in the various pastures, including Beacon 
Hill. The Mill Pond and the windmills in different parts of the town 
were still to be seen. The town was bounded almost entirely by water 
and the marshes which extended on the south and west nearly to the 
foot of the hills. There was a bridge to Charlestown and a road across 
the neck to the southwest. 

But with all its narrow streets and quaintness Boston was more than 
a provincial town or fishing port. Considerable as was its fishing 
industry, its commerce was greater. Up to 1755 it had been the largest 
town in the American Colonies with a population of seventeen thousand 
in 1740. Long Wharf, nearly two thousand feet in extent, was built in 
1710, and Boston Light, the first lighthouse in the New World, was 
completed in 1716. The larger merchants were traders in many ports 
with interests and relations which enlarged both their wealth and their 
minds. These men and others whose welfare was involved in shipping 
enterprises — shipbuilders, skilled mechanics, and tradesmen — saw 
their interests imperilled and threw themselves into the forces of the 
Revolution. It has been said that Commerce and not Democracy 
dominated the motives of Massachusetts in the Revolution, and there 
is much force in the statement. But Massachusetts was agricultural 
as well as commercial and the spirit of independence and of natural 
rights was strong. 

These forces and principles had their influence on the growing 
Bulfinch, and he in turn came to have his part in them in the work of 
the new era which had little promise at the beginning of 1787. For 
though the political tide, which had ebbed so steadily and with it 
industrial venture, was about to set in, there were yet two years of 
doubt and uncertainty. The Constitution and its adoption lay in the 

[ 12 ] 


 Cyrartes RIVER 








BOSTON IN 1789 


EARLY YEARS 


future and the ill-jomed Union gave little encouragement to enter- 
prise. In Massachusetts the sense of burden and injustice incident to 
debt, heavy taxes, and a depreciated currency made itself manifest in 
the anarchy of Shays’s Rebellion which speedily gave way to law and 
order. Boston was greatly depressed; local shipbuilding and trade had 
declined with her commerce and population; yet a few minds hoped 
and labored for the new day. With new hopes came new ventures, 
shipbuilding gradually increased and civic pride awoke. 

Up to within about a decade the town had been dominated by 
English ways in building, in dress, in general thought. Now it was to 
stand alone, to build for itself, to think for itself. Yet all of its new life 
and effort, as 1t soon found, rested upon the past, upon connections it 
could not sever, upon ideas that were a very part of its new develop- 
ment. What it had to do was to adapt these ideas to the new spirit and 
the new demands. 

No man was better prepared to be a leader in this civic betterment 
with its structural demands than Charles Bulfinch. By tradition and 
inheritance he felt himself a real part of the town and its life; by 
temperament and training he was fitted to choose and advise, with the 
zest and enthusiasm which come from seeing older forms of civilization 
expressed in municipal plans; in building for Church and State, 
Bulfinch, ever the artist and ever the good citizen, devoted himself to 
a life of real public service. With little if any consideration of pro- 
fessional interest or reward, he gave his consideration to the enlarging 
needs and demands of his time. This was not immediate, but of sure 
and steady development. He writes in his sketch, “On my return to 
Boston, I was warmly received by friends, and passed a season of 
leisure, pursuing no business but giving gratuitous advice in architec- 
ture, and looking forward to an establishment in life.’ 

[ 15 ] 


CHAPTER II 
BEGINNING OF WORK AND MARRIAGE 

T the very beginning of his career as a citizen, Bulfinch was 
yaX identified with a venture which proved of great importance to 
the commercial life of Boston and to the extension of the territory of 
the new Republic. The value of trade with China was recognized by 
Boston merchants, but they lacked an attractive medium of exchange; 
the problem was to find such medium. Already trade in furs on the 
Northwest Coast had been advocated by Captain Cook, but before his 
official report was published in 1784, John Ledyard, a young American 
who had been with Cook, made persistent attempts to establish trade. 
He enlisted the interest of Robert Morris, but the New York business 
men declared the scheme visionary. He then turned to Jefferson and 
Paul Jones in Paris, but no French money was found. In England he 
succeeded in obtaining funds to fit out the ship Nootka, but the pro- 
ject fell through. 

In Boston, three years after Cook’s report was published, six men, 
of whom Joseph Barrell, a prominent Boston merchant, was the leader, 
financed a venture which had results more far-reaching than they 
anticipated. These men met in the house of Dr. Thomas Bulfinch and 
resolved to fit out two ships. Accordingly the Columbia, two hundred 
and twenty tons burden, commanded by John Kendrick, who also was 
in charge of the expedition, and the Lady Washington of ninety tons, 
commanded by Robert Gray, were fitted, and, with a cargo selected 
to attract the Indians, sailed from Boston September 30, 1787. A 
bronze medal struck in commemoration of the enterprise is now in the 
collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society, where also are many 

[ 16 | 





JOSEPH BARRELL 
Pastel by John Singleton Copley 


Li 





BEGINNING OF WORK AND MARRIAGE 


original letters by Barrell, Kendrick, and Gray with accounts relating 
to the voyage. A number of pewter copies of this medal were struck off 
and taken on the ship. It will be seen that ‘C. Bulfinch’ appears on one 
side of the medal with other names. In July, 1893, one of the copper 
half-pennies taken on the voyage, dated Boston, 1787, was found by 
Alexander Mackenzie in the possession of a native of the country east 
of the Strait of Fuca. 

After various adventures the ships arrived on the Northwest Coast 
and opened trade with the Indians. When provisions began to run low 
in the summer of 1789, Kendrick ordered Gray to proceed in the 
Columbia to China. Gray accordingly, with a cargo of furs, sailed 
July 30, 1789. Arriving in Canton he sold the furs at a price lower 
than had been anticipated, loaded with tea, and on August 10, 1790, 
sailed into Boston Harbor amid the joyful acclaims of the citizens. 
For the first time the American flag had circled the globe. 

The tea was sold to Samuel Parkman; and though the venture was 
not a financial success and two of the owners, Darby and Pintard, 
withdrew, the ship was refitted and with a new and carefully selected 
cargo sailed September 28, 1790. In this venture Thomas Bulfinch is 
credited with £893. The Columbia arrived on the coast the following 
June. The next spring, 1792, Gray sailed southward where at Lat. 
46° 10’ he found breakers which for nine days he attempted to pass 
without avail. Sailing north, he fell in with Vancouver on April 29th 
and asked him if he had made any discovery. Vancouver replied that 
he had not, as yet, and inquired of Gray’s success. Gray then told him 
about the breakers which he had seen, and Vancouver said that was 
probably what he sighted two days back, and which he had judged of 
little importance. Gray determined to try again, and running south he 


found an anchorage which he named Bulfinch Harbor, now known as 
elm 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


Gray’s Harbor; and then going on he came, on May 11th, to the 
breakers, which he essayed again, this time with success. Once passed, 
he found himself in a broad river of clear water which he ascended for 
some distance. Then returning he landed on May 19th, deposited 
some coins at the foot of a pine tree, raised the American flag, and 
named the river Columbia. The north point, at the mouth of the river, 
he called Cape Hancock, and the south one Adams Point. Gray thus 
was the first white man to cross the bar and anchor and raise the 
American flag. The Columbia with tea from Canton arrived in Boston 
July 29, 1793. Hence a voyage of commercial adventure resulted not 
only in the extension of American territory, but in stimulating the 
commercial interests of Boston and New England. 

At the time when the Columbia venture was launched, a new 
Massachusetts State House was agitated, and this young man, twenty- 
five years old August 8th, set himself to provide a plan. It was no 
slight undertaking, and required more than an interest in architecture 
or the zeal of a European trip. We can never know the weeks or 
months he spent on this, probably his first design, but on November 
5th of that year he submitted a plan to the committee which had been 
appointed June 27th ‘to consider a more convenient place for holding 
the General Court.’ The letter, which is now in the Massachusetts 
Archives, contains detailed estimates amounting to four thousand 
pounds. It is not surprising, in consideration of the political and finan- 
cial condition, that no decided action was taken. The wonder is that a 
committee to consider the project should have been appointed within 
four months of the quelling of Shays’s Rebellion, but the final result 
of this initiative was a structure that was Bulfinch’s masterpiece. 

Bulfinch’s first executed design was Hollis Street Church, Boston, 
built in 1788 to replace the one destroyed by fire in 1787. The exterior 

[ 20 ] 


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E CHURCH 


EAST BRAINTRE 


BEGINNING OF WORK AND MARRIAGE 


was not beautiful, due to whatever limitation in design or in the 
financial condition of the society; but it gives an immediate illustration 
of the influence of Bulfinch’s trip abroad. This type of church is not 
always satisfying in brick or stone and practically impossible in wood; 
though Hollis Street Church served as a model for the second edifice 
of the First Congregational Church, Providence (1795), which was 
called a “beautiful copy of one of the most beautiful houses of worship 
in Boston.’ The copy was better than the model, but both buildings 
lacked grace and lightness. 

Of the Providence church an Englishman wrote in his ‘Travels 
through the Northern Parts of the United States’ in 1807-08, ‘The 
west end of the cathedral church of Saint Paul, in the city of London, 
is the model on which it is formed, and from which as much of the 
pomp of architecture has been imitated, as the small dimensions of the 
copy may have justified.’ This applies equally to Hollis Street Church, 
which on contemporary evidence was the model for the Providence 
structure. 

Hollis Street Church interior, sixty feet square, undoubtedly was 
inspired by Saint Stephen’s Church, Walbrook, London, but of course 
lacking all that exquisite charm of carving and ornamentation which 
makes that church Wren’s finest interior, which so touched the sense 
of beauty in Bulfinch. The unskilled drawings, interesting as being 
among the first done by Bulfinch, furnish a few details such as the 
ceiling in the form of a Greek cross crowned by a thirty-foot dome, and 
the galleries cutting the four large Ionic columns. We reasonably may 
assume that the interior design was executed much as drawn, since we 
know such was the fact of the exterior, but there is no hint of pulpit 
lines or the shape of the pews. 

From the ‘Massachusetts Magazine,’ December, 1793, we learn that 

[ 23 ] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


the galley breast work was adorned with festoons and a “fret-dentiled 
cornice,’ that the pulpit projected from the wall and had a flight of 
stairs on each side, and that back of the pulpit was a ‘ Venetian win- 
dow’ with fluted pilasters. There was no sounding-board, the dome 
serving instead; ‘those at a great distance hear as well as those near.’ 
‘We add with pleasure that the plan was given by the ingenious Mr. 
Bulfinch, who, to a good natural genius and a liberal education, having 
added the advantages of a tour through Europe, has returned to adorn 
his native town and country, in particular by his taste for and im- 
provements in architecture. His views in the present instance were 
well seconded by Mr. Joseph Wheeler, the head workman, who excells 
in executing as the other does in designing.’ 

The church was taken down in 1810 and rebuilt in East Braintree 
with an entirely different facade, as shown in the photograph before 
1897 when the edifice was destroyed by fire. Evidently the same 
framing was used and the old columns, but the lines of the cupola are 
wholly different and much better than those of Hollis Street Church. 

Bulfinch was married on November 20, 1788, to Hannah Apthorp, 
his cousin; one of the orphaned grandchildren of Stephen Greenleaf, 
the last high sheriff of Suffolk County under the British Government. 
In this marriage Bulfinch was blessed indeed! Through all the trials 
and afflictions of their life Hannah Bulfinch met the test. Her life was 
rich in faith and the power of the spirit, in moral fibre and steadfast- 
ness. Bulfinch writes of her: “We were cousins and had been in some 
degree acquainted from early life; the connection was esteemed a 
happy one and began under the most favourable circumstances. My 
disposition was sedate, hers cheerful and animated; a respectable 
property on both sides promised us the enjoyment of all the comforts 


and rational pleasures of life, and these expectations were fully 
[ 24 ] 





H 


© 


HANNAH BULFIN 





BEGINNING OF WORK AND MARRIAGE 


realized in the blessings of a peaceful home, with mutual affection and 
the enjoyment of the best society.”. Mrs. Bulfinch’s estimate of her 
character at the time accords with her portraits in oil and miniature: 
“As my disposition was uncommonly lively, I was in the more danger 
from my inconsiderate gaiety.’ 

In the spring of 1789, Bulfinch and his wife, accompanied by Anna 
Bulfinch and Frances Apthorp, sister of each respectively, and George 
Storer, who later married Anna, set out for the inauguration of 
Washington as first President of the United States. The Constitution 
framed at Philadelphia in 1787, after strong opposition in which 
Massachusetts had joined, had been adopted before the close of 1788, 
thus making the United States a national unit. Passing through 
Worcester and Springfield, Hartford and other towns, they arrived 
in New York, from whence they went to Philadelphia, where the 
architect finds a house of special interest. “This city is not much 
altered since I was last here, except in its increase; the same plain stile 
of building is kept up, and the same quakerish neatness. One only 
great exception to this appears in the house of Mr. Bingham, which is 
in a stile which would be esteemed splendid even in the most luxurious 
parts of Europe. Elegance of construction; white marble staircase, 
valuable paintings, the richest furniture and the utmost magnificence 
of decoration make it a palace, in my opinion far too rich for any man 
in this country.’ 

In the next letter from New York, April 19th, we find a mention of a 
matter that was beginning to have consideration in Puritan Boston: 
‘We attended three plays in Philadelphia, and have already seen two 
here; and I suppose it will be thought absolutely necessary by our 
party to see every one that shall be performed during our stay; indeed 
so charmed are they, that remarks upon the play and the different 

Lae | 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


actors engross great part of our conversation. You must expect our 
ladies to form a party in Boston for establishing a Theatre there, and 
they are pretty sure of success.’ And he adds, ‘I should be very glad 
to see him [Joseph Barrell] at a play; for the greatest part of my enter- 
tainment has arisen from a strict attention to the novices, and perceiv- 
ing their emotions.’ In this letter we find warm expression of his loyal 
admiration for Washington together with his comment on the hope of 
New York City to be the seat of government: ‘Notwithstanding these 
and other amusements we begin to wish to be at home, and shall hasten 
there with dilligence as soon as we have seen General Washington. The 
sight of this great man is all that is wanting to make our pleasures 
complete; he will certainly be here the latter end of this week, and will 
probably enter upon his office the Monday or Tuesday following; great 
preparations are making to shew the public joy on his arrival; elegant 
transparent paintings and fireworks are to be exhibited; and every- 
thing will be done to induce Congress to make this city the place of 
their permanent residence. Indeed, if a readiness to lavish away 
money can influence that body, no place can have an equal claim with 
New York, but I should not be surprised if they were to overdo the 
matter, and by such great eagerness excite the jealousy of other states; 
they have already expended near 25,000 pounds and seem to be still 
going on. ... We hope you do not blame us very loudly for overstaying 
our time, for you must reflect that the object we have in view is of such 
a sort as will never again appear during our lives. We expect not only 
to see General Washington, but to see him the favorite of this whole 
continent, the admiration of Europe — to see him publickly introduced 
to office and take an oath to preserve inviolate the constitution. This 
was one great motive for our coming, and we should ever regret losing 
this sight by any precipitate departure.’ Two days later he wrote: 
[ 28 ] 


BEGINNING OF WORK AND MARRIAGE 


‘Mr. John Apthorp, who left us at Philadelphia . . . has been as far as 
Mount Vernon, General Washington’s seat — dined with him — saw 
as much of the country as he wished, and is here with us ready to 
proceed to Boston.’ Unfortunately, we have no account by Bulfinch 
of the inauguration, April 30th, but we must hope that they all saw the 
‘great man,’ and that then, or in the following October when Washing- 
ton visited Boston, they had some closer touch. 

Of more than passing interest is the unmarked and heretofore un- 
identified sketch by Bulfinch of Federal Hall, because it is associated 
with his early life and his keen interest in the beginning of the new 
Republic. Following the decision that the inauguration of Washington 
should be in New York, the old city hall was transformed by L’Enfant 
and called Federal Hall. Here George Washington became the first 
President of the United States, and the following month a cut sub- 
stantially like this by Bulfinch was published in the ‘Massachusetts 
Magazine.’ 

One of the stories related of Washington’s visit to Boston is that 
Governor Hancock, through an exaggerated sense of dignity of him- 
self or the Commonwealth, would not call upon the President, deem- 
ing it the duty of the Chief Executive to call upon the Governor of the 
Sovereign State where he was visiting. But discovering his blunder 
(so runs the story) he swathed his limbs in flannels — a sudden victim 
of the gout, to which he was subject — and had himself carried to 
visit the President, who accepted and excused the tardy sufferer. This 
story, true to Hancock’s known vanity, could not have been told of 
Bulfinch. 

As the Town Directory for 1789 reads, ‘Charles Bulfinch, gentleman, 
Marlborough Street,’ we must infer that the couple were settled in 


their new home at the time of their marriage or soon after their arrival 
[ 29 ] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


Ox 


La 














SS eS ee SD RE Oe a 




















FEDERAL HALL, NEW YORK 
From original sketch by Bulfinch 
home from New York. It must be remembered that the part of 
Washington Street between School and Summer was called Marl- 
borough Bircct after 1718. Miss Bulfinch, in ‘Life and Letters,’ thus 
comments: “Rich and well connected, high-principled, yet with their 
grave New England training softened by a cultivation of mind and 
sweetness of temper somewhat unusual, there was every reason to 
predict for them a happy future.’ There was, as Bulfinch wrote, ‘re- 
spectable property’ on both sides, but what he had in his own right at 
[ 30 | 


BEGINNING OF WORK AND MARRIAGE 


this time we cannot determine. Somewhere on this street, probably 
between Franklin and Summer Streets, we must picture a house set a 
little back from the road with some land and trees and flowers — a 
house with sunshine and the atmosphere of home. Here began that 
practical consideration of the interests and needs of the town which 
developed steadily and continuously throughout his life. 

Though he did not accept official responsibility till March, 1791, his 
mind was occupied with the new and better town that was to be, and 
in the light of what he had seen in the cities abroad. We have an 
illustration of this in the design for the Beacon Hill memorial column. 
In 1789 the old beacon, which with its predecessors had served as a 
warning to the inhabitants in time of danger since 1634, was blown 
down. Bulfinch designed a column and suggested that this be erected 
in place of the beacon and to bear inscriptions commemorative of the 
liberty and independence secured by the exertion of patriots. The 
column, of the Roman Doric order, built of brick and covered with 
stucco, was sixty feet high and four feet in diameter surmounted by 
an eagle. It seems likely that the inscriptions on the four tablets were 
due to the Reverend Dr. Jeremy Belknap, pastor of the Federal Street 
Church. Dr. Belknap wrote: “Yesterday I was consulted on forming 
a set of inscriptions for an historical pillar, which is erecting on Beacon 
Hill. Some of the most striking events of the Revolution will be 
inscribed, beginning with the Stamp Act and ending with the Funding 
Act. These comprehend a period of twenty-five years. The one may 
be considered as the beginning, and the other as the conclusion, of 
the American Revolution. The pillar is to be sixty feet high; over 
its capital, the American eagle, which is to perform the office of a 
weather-cock. The arrows are to serve for points, and a conductor 
is to be added for the lightening. The designer is Mr. Charles 

[ 31 | 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


Bulfinch, a very ingenius and accomplished gentleman, and as modest 
as ingenius.’ 

The old beacon crude and practical had served its age; it gave way 
to the new day now dawning and to this new symbol which, with its 
finer beauty, pointed to 
those virtues in the past 
which must still inspire 
the future. We come here 
very close to the real 
Bulfinch; we see his taste, 
we feel the spirit of his 
civic and national ideals. 
When the top of Beacon 
Hill was cut down in 
1811, this shaft was re- 
moved, and the four tab- 
lets preserved. This mon- 
ument was reproduced 
exactly in stone, with the 
four tablets, restored after 


years of neglect, set in its 





THE BULFINCH COLUMN, BEACON HILL, base by the Bunker Hill 
BOSTON, 1789 Monument Association in 


1898, and formally presented to the State, June 17, 1899. It stands at 
the east of the State House. 

The designs for the churches in Taunton and Pittsfield, Massachu- 
setts, probably were made in 1789. They are both interesting in their 
extension of the church type plan as distinguished from the ‘ meeting- 
house,’ which had prevailed in New England till nearly this time. The 

[ 32 ] 


BEGINNING OF WORK AND MARRIAGE 


early meeting-house was a house adapted to public worship, oblong or 
square, with the pulpit opposite the main door, which in the case of the 
oblong type was always on the side. The Puritan had no chancel, 
or chancel end with pulpit. Christ Church (1723) and King’s Chapel 
(1754), Boston, were on the church plan with chancel at the end. The 
Old South (1730), Boston, while much the same as Christ Church, 
was a meeting-house with main door on the side and pulpit opposite. 
This has a tower at the end as did the latest type of meeting-house, but 
in no case was the pulpit opposite the tower. The first church of the 
Pilgrim or Puritan descent in New England to use the church type was 
Brattle Street Church (1772-73), Boston. This had a projecting porch 
facade with the pulpit placed opposite. The interior of the church was 
very beautiful, but the porch was not well done. We find only one 
other example of this idea, naturally interrupted during the Revolu- 
tion and the period of reconstruction, till we come to the influence of 
Bulfinch. That example is the First Baptist Meeting-House, so called, 
though a church in plan, of Providence, Rhode Island, the design for 
which undoubtedly was influenced by Brattle Street Church and 
King’s Chapel. This extended reference to the transition from the 
New England meeting-house to the church is made to give a better 
appreciation of what Bulfinch did. All the examples of good church 
architecture in Boston, except the Old South, and those abroad which 
Bulfinch had seen, followed the church type. Though Bulfinch speaks 
of meeting-houses in Taunton, Pittsfield, and Lancaster, they were 
really on the church plan. 

The illustrations of the exteriors of both Taunton and Pittsfield show 
the type we have been considering. The differences are in details, the 
general plan being the same. The belfry and spire of Taunton follow 
the prevailing type on New England meeting-houses in the eighteenth 

[ 33 ] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


century, but do not show Bulfinch’s hand as does the belfry at 
Pittsfield. The latter is a cupola, so called, and is a departure followed 
by builders in many communities after this time. Bulfinch’s contribu- 


tion in both these churches is the working-out of the projecting porch 





PULPIT END, BRATTLE STREET CHURCH, BOSTON, 1772-73 


fagade, a very decided advance over Brattle Street Church, and the 
cupola belfry, no example of which has been found prior to that 


at Pittsfield, though a great variety subsequently throughout New 
England.! 


1 “From Meeting-House to Church in New England,’ by Charles A. Place, in Old-Time 
New England, 1922-23. 


[ 34 ] 


~~ 


BEGINNING OF WORK AND MARRIAGE 





CHURCH, TAUNTON, MASSACHUSETTS, AFTER REMOVAL TO 
SPRING STREET IN 1827 


The Town of Taunton voted to build June 1, 1789, though the 
church was not completed till five years afterward. Bulfinch’s name 
appears on the seating committee, and the church is described as 
having square pews and a ‘lofty pulpit,’ with galleries on three sides. 
The building was removed to Spring Street about 1827 and for many 
years was used by the Universalists. 

In 1789 a committee was appointed by the Town of Pittsfield to 
procure a plan, etc., for a new ‘meeting-house.’ The building probably 

[ 35 | 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


was begun in 1790 and was finished in 1793, at a cost of £2188. It is 
said to have been fifty-five by ninety feet. Doubtless the interiors of 
both churches were due as much to local housewrights as to Bulfinch’s 
design. The plan was his, giving the general lines and locating the 
pulpit, possibly with a design for the latter; but the finish depended 
much on local skill and finance. The pulpit in Pittsfield is described as 
‘high and narrow with a long flight of stairs’; in Taunton, as a ‘lofty 
pulpit.’ It seems useless 
to hazard a guess at any- 
thing more definite. Thus 
far, after long search, no 
illustration of a high or 
lofty pulpit has been found 
in the whole Connecticut 
Valley and Berkshire re- 
gions, during the period 
from 1750 to 1800 and 
later. Most of the high 


pulpits were cut down 





or removed before 1850. 
Whether the pulpits in 


these two churches followed the style generally in use up to 1790, or 


CHURCH AT PITTSFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS 


were constructed on lines which Bulfinch designed, cannot be deter- 
mined. The writer deeply regrets his inability to give an illustration of 
the interiors of these churches and that no other descriptions have been 
found. An interesting illustration of the church is found in Clew’s 
‘Winter View of Pittsfield’ (about 1825-35). 

In 1789, the Bulfinches’ first child was born and named Susan for the 
father’s younger sister so much loved by him. The house in Marl- 

[ 36 ] 


BEGINNING OF WORK AND MARRIAGE 


borough Street continued to be their home during 1790. It is significant 
that the assessor’s book for this year records Bulfinch as ‘architect’; 
and though there is no entry of a carriage we find a manservant and 
entry of unoccupied house in Ward 7. To this ward, in which Bulfinch 
was born, the family removed before June, 1791, but whether to this 
unoccupied house for a time, situated probably in Southack Court 
(Howard Street), or immediately to Middlecot Street (Bowdoin 
Street), where we are certain they lived for some years up to the win- 


ter or spring of 1796, we cannot determine. 


CHAPTER III 
ELECTED SELECTMAN — THE CONNECTICUT STATE HOUSE 

\ N YE now come to consideration of the first years of his service 

to the town. It has been understood commonly that his 
service dates from 1789, and indeed on seemingly good authority. 
Bulfinch wrote, ‘Charles Bulfinch was a junior member of the board of 
Selectmen from 1789 to 1793; he was chairman from 1797 to 1818, 
twenty-one years.’ Neither of these statements is correct. A number 
of the nine members elected to the Board March 14, 1791, declined; 
and at an adjourned meeting, March 30th, Charles Bulfinch was 
elected ‘unanimously’ to fill one of the vacancies. Thus and then 
began his official connection, which continued (with the exception of 
the four years, March, 1795, to March, 1799) till his removal to 
Washington in late December, 1817. During the second period, which 
began in 1799, for a period of nineteen years he was Chairman of the 
Board. In another place Bulfinch records, “I enjoyed too the confidence 
and goodwill of my fellow townsmen, who chose me one of the Select- 
men at the early age of twenty-seven.’ This is correct. Bulfinch was 
twenty-seven in August, 1790. His first election was in the following 
March, according to the published records of the town meetings, which 
the minutes of the Board of Selectmen confirm. 

His first meeting with the Board is recorded under date of April 5, 
1791. At this meeting the Selectmen took under consideration the will 
of Benjamin Franklin because of a bequest to the town of one thousand 
pounds, and the Selectmen and three ministers were named trustees. 
In this year Bulfinch served on a number of committees which had to 
do with various town matters including Faneuil Hall, Beacon Hill, ete. 

[ 38 ] 


ELECTED SELECTMAN 


One of these was on street-lighting, and was a connecting link between 
private street-lamps, with increasing town appropriations for part 
maintenance, and a full town system. This committee, by the help of 
private subscription, tried the experiment of lighting the town in the 
winter of 1792. The success warranted a recommendation to light the 
lamps for the ‘ensuing’ year (April, 1792); and the town so voted. 
Bulfinch also had a part in the operation of a ‘New system of edu- 
cation’ which had been adopted by the town October 16, 1789. The 
committee (of which Bulfinch was secretary for the year 1792-93) to 
execute this new system was composed of twelve men elected annually 
‘conjunctly’ with the Selectmen, making a total of twenty-one 
members. Their business was to visit the schools ‘once in every 
quarter and as much oftener as they shall judge proper with three of 
their number at least to consult together and devise the best methods 
for instruction and government, etc.’ It wae a real executive service 
and involved much time and thought. There were seven schools: one, 
in which Latin and Greek were taught and ‘scholars fully qualified for 
the Universities,’ called the Latin School; one writing school each for 
the north, center, and south parts of the town for the teaching of writ- 
ing and arithmetic, and one reading school each as above, where read- 
ing, spelling, and grammar were taught. The Latin School was for 
boys at least ten years old who had received instruction in English 
grammar; the others were open to both sexes, admitted at the age of 
seven years and to be allowed to continue till the age of fourteen. The 
boys were to attend the year round; the girls from April 20th to 
October 20th. The marked advance in this new system was the 
extension of education to the children of both sexes. The committee, in 
a report to the town at its meeting May, 1792, emphasizes the great 
advantages already received from this system, and in consideration of 
[ 39 | 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


the increased duties recommend that the Masters receive two hundred 
pounds annually. 

The demand for a theatre, which undoubtedly had been growing for 
a considerable period, was brought to the attention of the town by a 
petition which caused an article for the meeting October 26, 1791, to 
see if the town would ‘interest their representatives to endeavour a 
repeal of an Act passed July 1750, entitled an act to Prevent Stage 
Play, and other Theatrical Entertainments.’ The motion that the 
petitioners have leave to withdraw was lost. It was then voted that 
Perez Morton, Esq., James Hughes, Esq., Mr. Charles Bulfinch, 
Captain James Prince, Samuel Cabot, Esq., Thomas Crafts, Esq., and 
Joseph Russell, Esq., be a committee to instruct the representatives to 
seek a repeal of the law. The committee in a letter to those gentlemen 
inform them that at a ‘very full meeting,’ and ‘after a lengthy and 
deliberate debate they have determined by a very large majority’ that 
the law ‘operates as an undue restraint upon the liberty of the citizens.’ 

This was one of the first steps toward establishing a theatre in 
Boston. To all this Bulfinch gave hearty approval and help, indeed 
we must count him one of the chief movers. No Puritan by birth or 
training, and with little sympathy with repressive measures, he loved 
the beautiful and its full, free expression in life. We have seen his keen 
enthusiasm for the theatre on his New York—Philadelphia trip two 
years before, possibly preceded by similar experience and delight on 
his visit to Europe, and his artistic nature responded and made him 
eager to have the same opportunity for enjoyment in Boston. The 
law was not repealed, saved doubtless by the country constituency ; 
but an attempt was made in 1792 to open a theatre which was sup- 
pressed by the authorities —it is said, at the instigation of Governor 
Hancock. 

[ 40 ] 


ELECTED. SELECTMAN 


In this year Joseph Coolidge built his ‘noble mansion’ — as Bul- 
finch describes it in 1843, about the time of its removal, fronting on 
Middlecot, now Bowdoin Street — in the midst of extensive gardens 
which stretched from Cambridge Street to one hundred sixty-six feet 
south of Allston Street. Mr. N. I. Bowditch in his ‘Gleaner’ articles 
describes the land and says, ‘This house and garden was altogether one 
of the most beautiful residences which have existed in our city within 
my memory. The pity is that we have no illustration and no real 
description, except that it was built of brick, three stories high and 
about sixty feet square with ell, and had a very handsome staircase. 
Mr. Coolidge was a friend and neighbor of the Bulfinches, whose son 
Joseph a few years later married Bulfinch’s sister Elizabeth. This 
mansion is supposed to be the first designed of Bulfinch’s many single 
residences, no one of which is mentioned by him; and is a mark of the 
increasing prosperity which by this time was strongly manifest in the 
town. The Joseph Barrell mansion, to be considered later in the 
chapter on residences, also belongs to this period. 

We are led to suppose that in this and in the majority of other 
residences Bulfinch supplied the general design, the proportions and 
the artistic motives, possibly also some interior plans adapted to the 
need of the owner. But so far as details of trim, of mantels, and of 
staircases were concerned, much was left to the housewrights who had 
practical experience and good models both in books — some English, 
some published in Boston — and in houses which they knew or had 
helped to build. That Bulfinch entered heartily into the ambitious 
desires of Mr. Coolidge is most natural, supplying him with the main 
design and following, as the work progressed, with ornamental ideas; 
profiting much by this practical contact with skilled builders. There is 
not the slightest trace of what he suggested for the design. Later he 

[cAd oy 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


built a series of residences which have one or more unmistakable 
Bulfinch marks, but the Coolidge house may or may not have displayed 
any of these characteristics. 

In 1791, Bulfinch was made a member of a committee appointed by 
the town, at a meeting December 30th, to consider the petition of a 
considerable number of inhabitants who desired ‘a more efficient 
police,’ and that consideration be given to “The present State of the 
Town.’ This was one of a number of attempts to form a city govern- 
ment with which evidently Bulfinch was in sympathy. This com- 
mittee reported in favor of a town council with much wider powers 
than possessed by the Selectmen and taking.over much of the business 
usually transacted in town meeting. The report was rejected by a 
vote of 701 to 517. 

On August 24th of this year, Bulfinch was elected a fellow of the 
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, of which John Adams was 
president at the time, and there is on file at the Academy building, 
Newbury Street, Boston, his letter of acceptance. We find also that 
he was Vice-President 1793-96, Librarian (probably not active) 1816- 
18, and member of the Council 1811—23. No record has been found of 
any paper read by him at any of the meetings. 

Bulfinch’s interests were many, as was natural for a man of his 
spirit and taste. In an Act of the General Court March 7, 1792, 
incorporating the Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture, 
Bulfinch is named with Samuel Adams, Joseph Barrell, Charles 
Vaughn, and others. We have no means of knowing how deep this 
interest in agriculture was or that it ever grew, but at least it is a hint 
of broad sympathy. At the annual meeting of the town in March, 
1792, Bulfinch was reélected to the Board of Selectmen, and during 
the year served on many committees, including those concerned with 

(427) 


ELECTED SELECTMAN 


the streets and the hospital, but after this year the extent of his service 
steadily declined. 

By this time Boston, still a town in government, bound to the town 
meeting and the annual dictates of citizens who distrusted delegated 
powers in matters small and great, was in reality a growing city with 
questions of education and vice, health and poverty, and the increas- 
ing demands for town improvements including new and wider streets. 
Its commerce and industry were flourishing, fishing was on the increase, 
and trade was world-wide, advancing steadily with the East and West 
Indies. In the Northwest Coast—Canton trade fourteen out of sixteen 
vessels belonged to Boston, helping to crowd the harbor with sail, as 
on a day in October, 1791, when seventy put out to sea. The town 
business then and for years to come was handled by a small group of 
men, the bulk of which devolved upon the Selectmen. In this school 
Bulfinch learned much by observance and experience which stood him 
well in hand in later years. 

All this activity of a population of over eighteen thousand in 1790, 
and growing rapidly, led not only to a demand for finer residences, 
to meet which Bulfinch applied himself, as we shall see later, but 
to general business expansion, including that of banking. Congress 
had funded the national debt, including that of the States incurred for 
national defence, and had established a national bank and a mint. 
Some indication of the increase of financial interests is seen in the 
establishment of the United States Branch Bank in 1791 and of the 
Union Bank in 1792, which, with the Massachusetts Bank dating from 
1784, gave Boston at this time fairly adequate banking facilities. 
New lawyers, merchants, and statesmen had come to the front; the 
future was bright with promise. 

It seems strange that no records have been found in Bulfinch’s 

[ 43 ] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


writings or in the family records concerning the State House at Hart- 
ford, Connecticut, but it is certain that plans had been drawn by him 
as early as September, 1792, and probably before that time. Though 
he had submitted a plan for the Massachusetts State House in 1787, 
the Connecticut State House was the first public building erected from 
his design. Situated in State House Square, Hartford, on the plot of 
land which was a part of the first purchase made by the English within 
the present limits of Connecticut, with unobstructed view across the 
green to the river at the east, the structure was a commanding symbol 
of a growing commonwealth. The painting in an old clock case gives 
us an idea of the building on the green; and though the early setting 
has been lost and we cannot see it as it was, the original beauty still 
appeals to us much as when completed in 1796. It is a delight to see 
this monument of State and civic pride so well restored, and it will 
become increasingly evident to the people of Hartford in particular 
that the decision to preserve and restore the old ‘City Hall,’ to which 
purpose the Old State House had been devoted in 1879, was not only 
wise, but a blessing to all who cherished the past expressed in architec- 
ture or the deeds of men. Some day the people of Hartford and the 
State of Connecticut will make another restoration and let this, one 
of the best-proportioned of public buildings, look out again to the east 
upon its original and true setting where the unhurried eye may behold 
its balanced grace and beauty. A representation of the building as 
originally finished may be found in the Colonel Jeremiah Halsey 
portrait, now in the possession of the Connecticut Historical Society, 
of which it forms part of the background. The balustrade was added 
in 1815 and the cupola in 1822, both doubtless in the original design. 
It is stated that the cupola is copied from one on the New York City 
Hall, and though the lines are good they are not those by Bulfinch. 
aay 





OLD STATE HOUSE, HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT 


fade | 


a 


“ 7 





ELECTED SELECTMAN 


The restoration, begun in 1918 — difficult because of the many 
changes, especially after the occupancy by the city — has been done 
in a sympathetic and skilful spirit and deserves great praise. Exam- 
ination proved that the foundations and outer walls were in excellent 
condition; the foundations are four to five feet thick and the first 
story, twenty feet high, constructed of Portland (Connecticut) free- 
stone three feet thick, and the upper story thirty feet high, of brick in 
Flemish bond two feet thick. All floor timbers were replaced with 
steel beams and the roof and cupola supported on steel trusses. In the 
interior a part of the work is a close restoration, and the remainder is a 
new finish as much as possible in harmony with the building. The 
structure is fifty by one hundred twenty feet with east and west porti- 
coes forty feet each. The south door is a restoration very close to 
original location and finish. The figure of Justice on the cupola now 
faces west and Main Street instead of east as formerly. The eastern 
_ portico opened through arches to a corridor likewise open on the west 
through the western portico. There were no solid outer walls with 
doors as at present, and the side walls of the corridor were constructed 
of selected brick exposed to view. From this corridor, as at present, 
the staircases ran westward on the north and south walls, to landings 
from which, bending in, they meet in a common landing, then ascend- 
ing by a broader flight eastward to the floor above. The direction of 
these stairs had been changed, and they are now rebuilt in the old 
location and in harmony with the original ideas. 

From the open (now closed) corridor two doors led to the Superior 
Court Chamber on the north, a room approximately forty-four feet 
square and twenty feet high. Absolutely changed in more than a 
hundred years, leaving nothing to suggest the former ornamentation, 
it now is refinished in the Doric order on lines somewhat similar to 

ee, 


CHARLES BULFINCH 





UPPER CORRIDOR, OLD CONNECTICUT STATE HOUSE 


Doric Hall in the Massachusetts State House, and quite in harmony 
with the rest of the building and Bulfinch’s spirit. The gallery on the 
south in its original location is reached from the first landing of the 
north flight of stairs in the corridor. Across the corridor from the 
courtroom were the former executive offices, still showing traces of 
original finish, with an open fireplace and mantel in the former Gov- 
ernor’s office, simple and good as when first built there. These rooms 
display little architectural interest save in the general lines and in the 
mouldings of the doors and windows. The main staircase was not 
continued above the second floor, but access to the third floor, which 
extends only over the hall and connecting with the gallery of the 
House of Representatives, was by a spiral staircase from the Secretary 
[ 48 ] 





ELECTED SELECTMAN 


of State’s office over the west portico, now refinished in conformity to 
the general interior, the Palladian window giving light through this 
room to the second-floor corridor. At the east the colonnaded portico 
is one of the chief architectural features of the building, the columns 
of which were formerly of brick, covered with stucco and painted. 
The glory of the former interior was undoubtedly in the two great 
rooms on the second floor, and there we find it to-day, restored in some 


particulars, but essentially the same as when first finished. In the 





HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, OLD CONNECTICUT STATE HOUSE 


House of Representatives the columns supporting the gallery on the 

south have been removed and are now reproduced as are also the 

fireplaces. The ceiling is new, and the chandeliers, both memorial 
[ 49 ] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


gifts, one in each chamber, are modern yet beautiful in themselves and 
in the adornment they add. In the Senate the fireplaces are original, 
though the over-mantels and a few other features, including the 
ceiling, are reproductions. The window-trim in this room is uncommon 
and interesting. These rooms are both approximately forty-five by 
forty-six feet and thirty feet high; rich in architectural ornamentation, 
well balanced, and with a grace and charm that appeal. 

The main architectural design of the building, with its almost perfect 
proportions and the other features which make the structure so good, 
belong to Bulfinch, but it hardly appears that all the interior finish can 
be ascribed to him. General lines were given, but much of the trim 
was due to the skill, by no means uncommon, of the carpenters or 
housewrights of the time. So with regard to the material used in 
construction; the architect might suggest and advise, but the decision 
rested upon local judgment involving resources of money and skill. 
That this was true in Hartford will be seen in the history to which we 
now come — a history of interest not only to the citizens of Connecti- 
cut, but beyond its borders. 

Some time after the adoption of the United States Constitution by 
Connecticut, a new State House was agitated, and in May, 1792, a 
petition was presented to the Legislature setting forth that £743 had 
been subscribed. One of Hartford’s leading citizens signing this paper 
was Thomas Seymour, the first Mayor when Hartford became a city 
in 1784. An Act of the General Assembly was passed at once appoint- 
ing a committee consisting of ‘John Chester, Noadiah Hooker, John 
Caldwell, John Trumbull, and John Morgan, prominent citizens of 
Hartford,’ to superintend the business of erecting and finishing a large 
and convenient State House, in the Town of Hartford, ‘with authority 
to draw upon the State for the sum of 1500 pounds, provided a like sum 

[ 50 | 


ELECTED SELECTMAN 





SENATE CHAMBER, OLD CONNECTICUT STATE HOUSE 


was raised from the City, Town and County of Hartford by May Ist, 
1793.’ 

By June Ist, $3500 had been subscribed by the citizens of Hartford, 
the county at large soon followed with $1500; and on August 27th the 
committee advertised in the ‘Hartford Courant’ for material to be 
used in construction. The record of greatest importance is a letter 
written by John Trumbull the painter and a member of the com- 


mittee. 


Hartrorp, September 30, 1792 
Dear Sir: — A new State House is to be built here next year upon 
a Design of Mr. Bulfinch, which I think is worth executing in the best 
is) 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


Materials. The Committee have determined to make great use of 
Middletown Stone — but as the Colour of that is not beautiful, I have 
propos’d to them to make use of the Philadelphia marble, such as us’d 
in the front of the new library (if the price be not too extravagant), in 
the more elegant parts of the Building. 

I will thank you therefore to ask of some of the principal workmen 
the price at which they will execute the following work: —a band of 
facia such as is common in the Philadelphia Houses, 14 feet Deep or 
wide to project out of the wall two inches — how much pr foot? 

— another facia 9 inches wide to project an Inch & half at bottom 
& the wall retiring above it half a brick so that the upper surface will 
be 6 Inches from the face of the wall — sloping to serve as a water- 
table. 

—a Doric Cornice the proportion of which is Two feet and a half — 
its depth proportional. 

—a Doric Column whose Shaft is 19 feet high: — Diameter 2 feet 4 
inches L — the base to be one block, the Column in Three. 

—a Doric Pilaster of the same proportions. 

— The pedestal six feet high, but divested of its mouldings. 

— The entablature five feet Deep with its triglyphs & Stars. 

— The blocks over windows of four feet plain. 

The whole of the work to be executed in the style of the Pilasters of 
that is Chissell’d only, not polish’d. 


as I may be out of the way — you will be so good as to convey the 





the new Library 


answers to these questions to Col. Chester at Wethersfield, who is one 
of the Committee; & who enters with zeal into the idea of having an 
elegant and durable building. 
if you will further take the trouble of making some enquiry whether 
it be possible to get one of the best workmen of Philadelphia to 
[ 52 ] 


ELECTED SELECTMAN 


superintend the Masonry and Brick work of the Building, you will 
further oblige, —I presume that Mr. John Morgan who is another of 
the committee will be in Philadelphia in the course of the month on 
this subject the previous enquiries you may be so good as to make will 
be of much use to him. 

As you are a Connecticut and almost a Hartford man, I need make 
no apology for so many questions, since they tend to the Honor of the 
state. 

I beg my best respects to Mrs. Wolcott & am with much Esteem, 

(Ole Sie, 
Your friend & servant, 


JOHN TRUMBULL painter. 


bAddressed to) 
O.tveR Wotcott Esa. 
Comptroller of the Treas. of the U.S. Phil. 

Here we have satisfying evidence that Bulfinch was the architect; 
and some light on the question of material. It is to be noted that 
marble is suggested wholly for ornamental purposes, quite in line with 
what Bulfinch would have been likely to suggest and as we see illus- 
trated in the Massachusetts State House. That this was not carried 
out was due doubtless to the matter of expense. It would have 
added much to the finish of the building whether constructed entirely 
of brick or in part of stone. 

The work was begun in the spring of 1793, the Legislature in May 
approving the “best plan’ which the committee had obtained and 
submitted to the Legislature in May calling ‘for the building of the 
lower story with hewn stone which would occasion great additional 
expense.’ From this it is clear that there was no plan when the building 
was authorized in May, 1792; and we know from the record of an 

[ 53 ] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


expense voucher that John Chester, the chairman of the committee, 
went to Boston in September following for the plan, and that the 
committee had decided upon ‘Middletown stone’ when Trumbull 
wrote his letter to Oliver Wolcott September 30th. Trumbull realized 
that the color of the proposed stone was not beautiful and that it would 
conflict with the hue of the brick, and therefore proposed the use of 
marble for relief and ornamentation. It is noteworthy that Trumbull 
in his ‘Reminiscences’ published in 1841, makes no mention of his 
connection with the construction of the Connecticut State House. 

At the same time the committee’s plan was approved, a State lottery 
for $5000 was authorized, twelve and one half per cent of which was to 
be applied to the building fund to cover the additional expense in the 
use of stone. The lottery did not meet with great success, owing to the 
fact that so many other lotteries were in progress in other States; but 
the work on the building progressed and by the middle of the follow- 
ing year the walls were practically completed. The committee then 
determined, in order to save the building from the exposure a winter, 
to roof and close it in. This was done on the personal security of the 
five members. 

Thus the matter rested at the close of 1794. In 1795, Colonel 
Jeremiah Halsey and General Andrew Ward offered to complete the 
building in consideration of a conveyance by the State of title to 
the ‘Gore Lands.’ These men gave bonds in $40,000 to complete the 
structure and a deed to the land was given, dated July 25, 1795. The 
work then went forward rapidly and the building was ready for 
occupancy in 1796; Oliver Wolcott to whom Trumbull had written 
in 1792 being inaugurated Governor there on May 13th. A committee 
appointed in October, 1796, to inquire into the cost of the building, 
reported that $17,480 had been expended up to the close of 1794, and 

EDs] 


ELECTED SELECTMAN 


that “Col. Halsey informs your committee that he expended in com- 
pleting the State House $35,000." The Legislature in June, 1796, 
approved Colonel Halsey’s account for furniture, amounting to 
£334-19-8. 

There is no evidence that Bulfinch devoted any time to personal 
supervision of the erection of the building. Not only is there a voucher 
of John Leffingwell, who was in charge of construction, that reads, 
‘June 1793 to my expenses to Boston £6—3-8,’ which may be inter- 
preted as concerned with a consultation with the architect, but Bul- 
finch’s presence in Boston can be established so continuously that any- 
thing more than a brief absence was impossible. From the spring of 
1793 onward he was absorbed in work in Boston and especially in his 


own venture in Franklin Place. 


CHAPTER IV 

FRANKLIN PLACE AND THE MASSACHUSETTS STATE HOUSE 

N 1793, a beginning was made on a scheme that probably had been 
| in the mind of Bulfinch since his return from Europe and in re- 
sponse now to an increasing demand for new dwellings of the better 
kind. The full story of the Tontine plan in Franklin Place will never 
be written, because the scanty records leave many obscure points un- 
touched. The brief reference by Bulfinch, written years afterward, 
presents only a blurred picture, and Mrs. Bulfinch’s record adds but a 
shadow lit by the sunshine of her sweet spirit with no touch of bitter- 
ness. In 1793, fortune smiled upon Bulfinch, then in the full tide of 
his career, and he gave himself with artistic zest to the ideas that 
crowded upon him. The Tontine scheme was an association for build- 
ing dwellings on the annuity plan as practiced in Europe, and though 
the General Court refused to incorporate, Bulfinch and his brother-in- 
law Charles Vaughn went ahead, Vaughn purchasing the estate of 
Joseph Barrell lying north on Summer Street, May 10, 1793. 

The plan was for a series of connected dwellings, sixteen in all, from 
an idea which Bulfinch probably obtained in England, not unlikely, 
as has been suggested, from a design by the Adam brothers seen by 
Bulfinch when in England. This was of two semi-circles facing each 
other with a park space between, but though we are assured that no 
crescents are known in London as late as 1804, the Adam brothers are 
credited with combining dwellings in large blocks. Credit for introduc- 
ing this type of building in Boston is due to Bulfinch, but, though the 
south curved line, four hundred eighty feet in extent, may be seen to- 
day in Franklin Street below Hawley, the north line was straight. 

[ 56 | 


TIVINOWHW NITMNVUd AHL GNV HOUV AHL ONIMOHS ‘SDONIGTING ANILNOL AHL 








FRANKLIN PLACE AND MASSACHUSETTS STATE HOUSE 


Between these lines was a semi-oval strip of land three hundred feet 
long devoted to grass and trees in which opposite the arch Bulfinch 
placed an urn which he had imported from Europe, as a memorial to 


Franklin then recently deceased. 























































































4 Zz 


By 


PLAN OF TONTINE CRESCENT FROM “MASSACHUSETTS MAGAZINE, 1794 


Half of the block on the crescent, including the middle portion, was 
so far advanced that the promoters, on December 31st, wrote to the 
Massachusetts Historical Society, ‘In erecting the center building of 
the Crescent it was our intention to accommodate the Historical Society 
with a convenient room.’ This gift was accepted by the Society at a 
meeting January 10, 1794, and conveyance made May Ist following. 
Out of the tangle of many conveyances it seems evident that, though 
the original plan included all the block on the crescent, only fifty shares 
were sold applying to numbers one to eight; and that Vaughn began to 
transfer his shares and his landholdings May 3, 1794. At that time 
William Scollay increased his shares, holding at the end, January, 
1796, the bulk. Vaughn, though no longer active, seems to have been 
a creditor. 

Another mark of the influence of Bulfinch was in the new theatre. 

[ 59 | 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


Not only was he a trustee with Perez Morton, Joseph Russell, Henry 
Jackson, and Samuel Brown, but one of the active movers in the enter- 
prise from the beginning of the agitation. At a town meeting January 
22, 1793, a ‘remonstrance’ was sent to the General Court that the 
inhabitants of Boston consider the law ‘made antecedent to the 
establishment of our present free and happy form of government as un- 
constitutional, inexpedient and absurd’; and a committee, composed 
in part of Joseph Russell (town treasurer), Perez Morton, John Quincy 
Adams, Paul Revere, and Harrison Gray Otis, was appointed to co- 
operate in the matter and authorized to wait upon the Governor with 
a copy of the resolutions and present an address. In the following 
July, land on Federal Street was conveyed to the trustees of the 
Boston Theatre and the work of building pushed with such dispatch 
that the house was opened February 3, 1794. This theatre, after years 
of Puritan opposition, was a triumph of the new social spirit which set 
its stamp upon the town and against gloom and bigotry. The face 
portrayed by Mather Brown suggests how whole-heartedly Bulfinch 
entered into this newer and freer life and with what satisfaction he 
attended the opening performance. 

Our knowledge of the building is furnished by the gold medal given 
to Bulfinch, showing a facade of architectural merit with lines close 
to those in a little sketch by him marked ‘Crunden’s design,’ and with 
window motives used in the Massachusetts State House. The medal, 
still in the possession of the family, is a heavy piece of gold of artistic 
merit, carrying on the reverse side the inscription, “Presented by the 
Proprietors of the Boston Theatre to Charles Bulfinch, Esqr. for his un- 
remitted and Liberal Attention in the Plan and Execution of that 
Buildings [sic], the Elegance of which is the best Evidence of his Taste 
and Talents.’ We may imagine that the interior beauty was not much 

[ 60 ] 


FRANKLIN PLACE AND MASSACHUSETTS STATE HOUSE 


hyihe Proprine 


of the” Dos PON’ ae ie 


7" ‘hat AE 


“ 18 MEDAL en 3 hit Widenee of I 
CHARLES ButPincn tt 


a Seat inthe BosronTaEaT Vale Vahe 
chart lig Like: ; 





MEDAL AWARDED TO BULFINCH BY THE PROPRIETORS OF THE BOSTON THEATRE 
The obverse shows the front of the Theatre 


different from that of the second theatre which quickly replaced the 
first, destroyed by fire in 1798, and opened in October. This plainer 
structure, sixty by one hundred fourteen feet, designed by Bulfinch, 
built of brick, had a circular ceiling on arches carried by Corinthian 
columns. The stage was flanked by two columns and two ters of 
boxes, the upper one of which was hung with crimson silk. The walls 
were painted azure, the columns straw and lilac color, and the balusters 
were gilt. In the wing, fifty-one by sixteen feet, was a spacious ball- 
room with a cuisine beneath. The property on the corner at the very 
foot of Franklin Place, including a scene-painter’s shop thirty-five by 
fifteen feet and 9987 feet of land, was taxed in 1798 for $20,000. 
Some idea of the cost of the original enterprise 1s found in a convey- 
ance to William Clap, under date of December 1, 1794, of “one un- 
divided sixtieth part’ in the theatre for which he paid £242, ‘lawful 
money. Because of its bearing on the furnishings and the success of 


the first short season, it seems worth while to reprint a letter of 
[Gls] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 





SECOND THEATRE 


Bulfinch to Mr. J. Taylor which was published in ‘Life and Letters of 
Charles Bulfinch.’ 


Boston, June 11, 1794 

Dear Str, — I have now the pleasure of forwarding to you a bill of 
Exchange, drawn by Stephen Higginson Esq. upon Messrs. F. M. &. D. 
Smit of Rotterdam, and payable in London. I have been anxious to 
remit this amount to you before, but all opportunities from this place 
have been prevented by an embargo of nearly 3 months, which has 
interrupted the regular course of business. At the foot I shall place a 
statement of your account with the Proprietors of the Theatre, and 
hope this remittance will cover all charges. 

The Trustees of the Theatre direct me to make their acknowledge- 
ments to you for your attention and kindness in procuring so elegant a 
set of embellishments for their house. 

[ 62 ] 


FRANKLIN PLACE AND MASSACHUSETTS STATE HOUSE 


The price has much exceeded their expectations, but they pay it 
with cheerfulness, as they are confident articles of equal elegance could 
not be procured on better terms. They have determined to allow you 
a commission of 5 P.C. on the purchase and interest as far as you have 
been obliged to pay it, or to advance. If these charges should exceed 
the sum now sent, please to make out a statement and charge the 
balance to my account, and it shall be paid immediately. 

I have the satisfaction to be able to inform you that the Theatre 
meets the wishes and expectations of the public and even has drawn 
some marks of approbation from foreigners who have seen it. At my 
first leisure I shall give you a description of it, and of other extensive 
works carrying on here. 

Mr. Powell is just closing his season, he has met with astonishing 
success, and his company has given satisfaction considering the short 
time he had to collect them in England; we homecer hope for a better, 
next winter. Mr. Powell promises that no exertions of his shall be 


wanting. Iam Xe. 


The work on the ‘Tontine Crescent’ had so far progressed that the 
Reverend Jeremy Belknap, writing on September 20, 1794, enclosed a 
rough sketch showing the Crescent buildings extending from Hawley 
Street, the Theatre, Federal Street Church (of which he was pastor), 
but with no indication of the buildings on the north side of Franklin 
Place. That the four detached double houses which were built on the 
north side were planned by the close of 1794 and begun in the following 
year seems evident. Charles Vaughn had withdrawn, and William 
Scollay gave little support. Bulfinch, with the fervor of the creative 
genius, looked ahead refusing to be daunted. But the risk was great. 
To the uncertainty of politics and commerce was added the certainty 

[ 63 | 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


of the Jay Treaty, signed in November, 1794, which, while it averted 
war with England, at once in Boston and in the Nation at large was 
received with dismay and determined opposition. Democracy had 
leaned to France till it became clear that anarchy and license were not 
liberty and justice. The Citizen Genét affair had demonstrated the 
cheap effrontery of mere citizenship not founded in principle. This 
Jay Treaty seemed a yoke of bondage restricting both trade and 
political freedom, yet England held the key to the financial situation 
and must be reckoned with, since any alliance with France now was im- 
possible. In spite of all this gloom and chagrin, Bulfinch determined 
_to push on. More deeply involving himself financially, one definite 
amount being $16,440, acknowledged to Harrison Gray Otis and 
David Sears in December, 1794, he proceeded to erect the four double 
houses on the north of Franklin Place, which must have gone forward 
rapidly, since one half of one of them, number 22, was conveyed by 
Bulfinch on October 15, 1795, for $8000. This conveyance was to John 
McLean, later the generous benefactor of the Massachusetts General 
Hospital, whose name is perpetuated in McLean Hospital. 

During the years 1793-94, Bulfinch had little time to devote to 
the affairs of the town. Elected to the Board of Selectmen in both 
years, he served on a few not important committees, but in 1794 was 
seldom present at the Board meetings. In November, 1793, the West 
Boston Bridge to Cambridge was opened, making the second bridge 
to afford communication with the mainland. The bridge to Charles- 
town had been opened in 1785. On September 5, 1794, Bulfinch was 
made chairman of a committee to erect a new building on Deer Island, 
which is mentioned as completed when the Board visited the Island in 
July following, but no plan or description has been found. Reélected 
again to the Board of Selectmen, March 9th, he declined on account of 

[Oe 





A NORTH-SIDE HOUSE ON FRANKLIN PLACE 





FRANKLIN PLACE AND MASSACHUSETTS STATE HOUSE 


pressure of business and received the ‘thanks of the town’ for his good 
services. In the records of these four years we have a glimpse of the 
growing town, and of Bulfinch’s part in it. With his fellow-citizens he 
was concerned with schools, better streets, the poor and the sick, with 
markets and fair methods of trade; and was associated with men of 
character and vision, with whom he labored for better conditions and 
life. 

No definite action was taken on the proposal made by the Town of 
Boston in January, 1793, to build a new State House for the Common- 
wealth on any spot within the town and on any model, providing the 
cost did not exceed £9000, and that the State would grant £2000, the 
old State House and the Province House; but on February 11, 1795, 
the town authorized a committee to procure land for the State House, 
and on February 16th, the Governor approved the Resolve of the 
General Court adopting Bulfinch’s plan and making him one of three 
agents for its erection. For the next few years he was concerned with 
the new State House, the vision and plan of which had been in his 
mind since his return from England. His first plan was submitted 
November 5, 1787; and now, after years of hope and waiting, he was to 
have the deep satisfaction of helping to objectify his own design in the 
town of his birth. His connection with this structure was more personal 
and intimate than with any other of his designs. He had a real part in 
the effort of the citizens which had resulted in the decision to build, and 
now at the age of thirty-one years he was to be associated with two men 
who represented the best of their times. 

Thomas Dawes, the member of the committee appointed from the 
Senate, was born in Boston, in 1731; ‘Mr. Jonathan Smoothingplane’ 
the Tories called him; and because of his conspicuous part in the early 
scenes of the Revolution he incurred the anger of the Royalists and 

[ 67 | 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


his house in Purchase Street, next to Samuel Adams’s, was sacked by 
the British troops before their removal from Boston. “Col. Dawes,’ 
‘The Honab’] Thomas Dawes,’ served the State as Senator and on the 
Governor’s Council, and the town faithfully for a long period as 
member of the school and other important committees, and for many 
years was the town’s efficient and esteemed Moderator. Highly 
respected citizen, he had, from his trade as mason learned in youth, 
risen to be a practical and successful builder. 

Edward Hutchinson Robbins, of Milton, Speaker of the House and 
appointed from that body, was born in 1758. Well-connected, cultured, 
wealthy, a man of the highest integrity and so esteemed by his fellows, 
he-was well fitted to codperate in the work in which he delighted. 
From his estate in Calais, Maine, came the solid columns for the State 
House, which were carved on the ground in Boston. 

The laying of the corner-stone on July 4, 1795, was picturesque and 
impressive. Hauled to its place on a truck decorated with ribbons and 
drawn by fifteen white horses, representing the then fifteen States of 
the Union, it was laid by Governor Samuel Adams assisted by the Grand 
Lodge of Masons — Paul Revere, Grand Master. As architect, Bulfinch’s 
task was to interpret and advise; but upon him also devolved much of 
the purchasing as well as many of the business details. It must have 
been a duty greatly to his liking. 

Absorbed in his work in Franklin Place and the State House, the 
year 1795 passed bringing ever nearer the fatal hour in January, 1796. 
Bulfinch records that only half of the Tontine shares were subscribed 
for, the remainder continuing at the risk of the company; and that, as 
Vaughn had been seriously advised by his brother in London against 
the undertaking, ‘I agreed to discharge him from all obligation and 


take his share of the concern upon myself.’ 
[ 68 ] 


FRANKLIN PLACE AND MASSACHUSETTS STATE HOUSE 


‘Mr. Scollay too was little able to make advances, still I was so 
sanguine respecting the success of the project, that I persevered in 
completing the whole range. But this was done at heavy interest on 
loans and losses on forced sales, till on the eve of an expected rupture 
with England, just before the settlement of topics of dispute by Mr. 
Jay’s treaty, property of every kind was at so low an ebb that no sales 
could be made and no further loans obtained and I was obliged to 
become bankrupt and assign the property for creditors; in the conse- 
quences of this project, my father and brother G. Storer were involved 
as my endorsers. 

“With what remorse have I looked back on these events, when 
blindly gratifying a taste for a favorite pursuit, I involved for life 
myself and wife with our children — my father and mother and sisters, 
who all held the utmost confidence in my measures and pride in my 
expected success. 

‘They all bore the loss and mortification without repining. My in- 
experience and that of my agents in conducting business of this nature, 
together with my earnest desire to discharge all demands as far as 
possible, led me to surrender all my property, even that obtained by 
marriage, which was intended to be secured to my wife and her heirs 
but from a defect in the form of settlement this property was included 
with the rest, and I found myself reduced to my personal exertions for 
support. I had some satisfaction in knowing that not one of my 
creditors was materially injured, many were secured to the full 
amount, and the deduction on the balance due to workmen did not 
exceed 10 P.C. on their entire bills.’ 

It must be remembered that Bulfinch wrote this years afterward at 
the close of his life and that dates and events were obscure. As has 


been stated before, the persistency which led to his failure was in the 
[ 69 | 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


year 1795, following the signing, November, 1794, of the Jay Treaty, 
which was ratified in the succeeding August. He continues, ‘Soon 
after my failure my younger sister was married to Joseph Coolidge, 
son of Joseph Coolidge, Esq., merchant, who purchased the mansion 
house in Bowdoin Square, and enlarged and repaired it for his son, and 
I had the gratification to see my good father and mother living for the 
remainder of their lives under the roof of their own home, tenderly at- 
tended to by their daughter and her worthy and liberal husband.’ 

Dimly and imperfectly we realize something of the bitter chagrin 
Bulfinch felt. Whether this calamity narrowed or widened his oppor- 
tunity to enter into real life and to impress himself upon it, it is 1m- 
possible to say. Both husband and wife bore the blow with Christian 
fortitude. Her character is revealed in two records. The first is 
entered under date of July 12, 1795: ‘Affuence and content are ours, 
virtue and innocence the aim of our lives, the object of our wishes. 
Four families consisting of Brothers and Sisters, situated near each 
other and by affection still nearer, what more can we wish for except 
the continuance of our family harmony, and improvement in piety and 
benevolence. The world has nothing more to give, and we must own 
with humility these are above our deserts. Let me... for my own 
advantage upon this grateful retrospect copy the sublime instructions 
of my favorite Blair.’ The passage begins, “As men, then, bethink 
yourselves of human instability.’ The coming event here seems to have 
cast its shadow on her mind. 

The other record is by one of her sons and runs: “They say that while 
everything in the habits of the woman of fortune inconsistent with 
her altered circumstances was dropped instantly, and the business 
habits of a good housekeeper immediately adopted, she never laid 


aside, in any scenes of joy or sorrow, the deportment of a lady, nor the 
[ 70 | 


FRANKLIN PLACE AND MASSACHUSETTS STATE HOUSE 


graceful unembarrassed manner in which she could still meet the 
friends of former days, delighting in their society and ever cheerful and 
attractive in it. But in the narrow circle of home, to which her in- 
creasing cares confined her almost exclusively, she seemed to feel no 
want of other society than that of her husband and her children.’ 
The couple were obliged to give up their home in Middlecot Street 
and to occupy a small house the rent of which was paid by Mrs. Bul- 
finch’s brother. Great and sudden change — an ample home, a chaise, 
a man-servant and two or more maid-servants — to this little house 
with rent paid by another! A few months later they accepted the 
invitation of the Storers — George and Bulfinch’s sister, likewise in 
straitened circumstances by 
reason of Bulfinch’s failure — 
to share the same house and 
unitedly support their two 
families. This arrangement 
in Southack’s Court con- 
tinued till 1799, ‘united by 


interest and every tie grati- 





tude can form.’ 

Just before this failure, 
Bulfinch did a characteristic 
act by deeding to the Boston 








Library Society the lower 





room over thearch. Bulfinch 


From original drawing 


was one of the incorporators 

of the Society with Scollay, Vaughn, and others, June 17, 1794. Now, 

with ever-darkening clouds, carrying alone the whole burden of the 

Franklin Place scheme, he deeds for five shillings ‘and the encourage- 
cla 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


ment of literature,’ and Mrs. Bulfinch places her name on the paper. 
The year before, June 25, 1795, the Massachusetts Society for the 
Aid of Immigrants was incorporated by Bulfinch, Vaughn, Theodore 
Lyman, and others. It was in these many ways Bulfinch gave himself 
to the service of his fellows. 

Now comes the insistent question, why did Charles Bulfinch fail? 
Why did both Vaughn and Scollay withdraw? Were they unduly 
cautious and insistent upon curtailing and he oversanguine and 
equally determined to complete? In the face of lessening trade and 
commerce, with the Jay Treaty still unratified, new and elegant 
dwellings did not find ready sale. Money, too, was scarce and high; the 
Bank of England, straining every nerve, just escaped bankruptcy. 
But the condition of business alone fails to give us an answer. Before 
the failure, Bulfinch had sold seven houses, at least, not including 
numbers one to eight, and including one on the north side which 
brought $8000. What were his obligations January 15, 1796, and what 
then was the attitude of Vaughn and Scollay? On January 21, 1796. 
the fatal day, Bulfinch conveyed the balance, or his equity, to Charles 
Vaughn, and three days later, January 24th, William Scollay conveyed 
his Tontine shares involving numbers one to eight to Jonathan Mason 
and others. There is no record of costs of land and construction. Why, 
and by whom was settlement demanded? On March 20, 1798, Harrison 
Gray Otis wrote to his wife from Philadelphia, ‘Charles Bulfinch 
arrived yesterday and dined with me this day. He looks forlorn and 
dejected and gives me but little satisfaction with respect to Vaughn.’ 
Bulfinch gave no hint; but Mrs. Bulfinch, under date of September 1, 
1796, writes, ‘Let me rejoice that we have health, friends and a good 
conscience’; and again, ‘Creditors hard and unfeeling refuse to my 
husband that settlement which again would leave him free to exert his 

ier 





THE ARCH, TONTINE BUILDINGS, BOSTON 





ar re = 


FRANKLIN PLACE AND MASSACHUSETTS STATE HOUSE 


faculties for the support of his family. We are consequently still 
dependent.’ 

Charles Bulfinch’s venture went upon the rocks just at dawn. Trade 
revived soon after the qualified acceptance of the treaty in August, 
1795, and within a short time Boston commerce was reaching toward 
its greatest volume. By 1798, every one of the twenty-four dwellings 
had been sold with an assessed value of over $125,000. It may be of 
interest to see who owned or occupied these dwellings in 1798. 

Number 1, William Tudor; 2, Benjamin Green; 3, J. Perkins, 
occupier, J. and T. H. Perkins, owners; 4, Samuel Cobb; 5, John 
Murray; 6, Stephen Higginson, Jr.; 7, George Blake, owner, Edward 
Tuckerman, Jr., occupier; 8, Joseph Foster; 9, William Payne, owner, 
William Dagegin, occupier; 10, John Callender; 11, John Marston; 12, 
Benjamin Cobb, owner, Isaac Hall, occupier; 13, Abigail Howard; 
14, William Welch; 15, Samuel Parkman, owner, Ebenezer Preble, 
occupier; 16, Samuel Parkman, owner, Edward Blake, Jr., occupier; 
17, John Lucas; 18, John Osborn; 19, John Welles; 20, Mrs. Elizabeth 
Amory; 21, Thomas C. Amory;.22, John McLean; 23, John Hubbard; 
24, Don Juan Stoughton, Spanish Consul. 

All our knowledge of the Franklin Place houses is found in the little 
ground plan and the old photographs. The end houses in the Crescent 
were projected slightly and carried pilasters; otherwise the structure 
was plain, save in the string-course and the ornamentation of the 
middle part at the arch. These buildings and those on the north were 
built of brick with details shown in the illustrations, the most out- 
standing of which are the pilaster treatment and the arched recess 
repeated in other buildings of later design. 

After the disaster of Franklin Place, Bulfinch continued his work on 
the State House happy in the continued respect and confidence of his 

[ 75 | 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


friends and fellow-townsfolk. There is almost no other record for the 
years 1796-98. In January, 1798, the State House was ready for 
occupancy by the General Court, though the finishing required more 
than a year beyond this date. Here was one high hope fulfilled despite 
other failures; and January 11, 1798, was a bright day for Charles 
Bulfinch as well as for his fellow-citizens. The heart of this noble 
gentleman must have beat high as he, a truly conspicuous figure, 
marched in the procession that made its way from the old State House 
in State Street to occupy this new structure on Beacon Hill. 

No building in Massachusetts is more worthy of interest and homage 
than the State Capitol in Boston, set high on Beacon Hill, with its 
commanding view of the Common. It has many cherished associations, 
and a valued history; men high in the moral action of State and Nation 
have trod its halls; out of it went men with lofty resolves on sacred 
mission; to it have been returned flags, precious tokens to past and 
present generations. But our interest here is primarily with its 
architecture. } | 

The general lines of the elevation are clearly evident, though some 
of the original details are obscure. The Pendleton Lithograph of 1827, 
or shortly after, is the most satisfactory of the earliest known illustra- 
tions of the buildings. The stone wall surmounted by the iron fence 
was erected in 1826. A print of 1817, from A. Bowen’s earlier woodcut, 
gives a cruder idea of the essential lines. The changes principally 
to be noted in the building as it stands to-day are the construction 
of a basement above the ground, and the building-out of a piazza 
with low balustrade from the steps which formerly ascended between 
the columns. This is distinctly at variance with Bulfinch’s design 
and undoubtedly would have had his strong disapproval, inasmuch 
as he planned the building without a basement. The structure as 

heztins 


NMOd DNIMOOT ‘AOWId NIIMNVUA 





ydeisoyy] Uojpusg oy} Woy 
HSNOH ALVIS SLLASOHOVSSVIN 





FRANKLIN PLACE AND MASSACHUSETTS STATE HOUSE 


it stands to-day, with the changes noted above, does not show the 
original proportions. A picture dating after 1865 shows a disfigure- 
ment to the front story caused by cutting the windows up to the 
string-course, later overcome by restoring the original lines. There is 
good evidence that the east end was constructed essentially as seen 
to-day with three arched windows; but the west end 1s notably different 
with five windows, unquestionably original, though the five smaller 
ones which cut the entablature almost up to the cornice, a construction 
impossible to reconcile with Bulfinch’s taste, may be later openings. 

The structure, one hundred and seventy-two feet by sixty-five feet, 
and with a dome rising one hundred and fifty-five feet, is constructed of 
red brick in Flemish bond, with white 
marble lintels and keystones. The 
brick was painted white in 1825. At 
the time of erection, the north side 
of the building was practically the 
same as the south, though much ob- 
scured by the hill which was higher 
back of it, removed in 1811. The 
north side was changed by the erec- 
tion of the fireproof edifice in 1831, 


ninety feet long; and again later 





in 1855, when a new building was 


DOME OF STATE HOUSE, BOSTON 


erected which extended the length 

of the Bulfinch building. The present cupola or ‘lanthorn’ is a repro- 

duction of the original; and the beautiful dome, fifty-three feet in 

diameter, made fireproof by steel beams in the preservation of 1896-98, 

is in all essentials of line and proportion the dome of Bulfinch. It 

seems almost unbelievable that the dome had no protection from the 
bah 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


weather until 1802 when Paul Revere and Son covered it with copper. 
It was first gilded in 1861 and covered with gold leaf in 1874. 

The story of the covering of the dome by Revere and Son and many 
other interesting facts are set forth by Miss Ellen M. Burrell in her 
little book, “The State House.’ Her untiring interest in the State 
House, extending through 
many years, has brought 
to light much that other- 
wise might have remained 
hidden. 

In spite of the many 
interior changes during 
one hundred years, we 
are especially fortunate 
to-day to behold the ma- 
jor part of the original 
beauty. Owing to the 
spirit which prevailed in 
1896 to preserve the Bul- 
finch building, we find, 
especially in Doric Hall, 
the old Senate Chamber, 
the Old House, and the 
Council Chamber, the de- 
sign of Bulfinch. 

Doric Hall, approxi- 





DORIC HALL, SHOWING SOUTH DOOR 


mately fifty-five feet square, which had in 1798 three doors leading 

from the portico, now has only one, rarely used. This door has the 

original trim so much in use in the buildings of that time, and is 
[ 80 | 


FRANKLIN PLACE AND MASSACHUSETTS STATE HOUSE 


panelled with a reed moulding, all that suggests the lighter treat- 
ment to be found on the floor above. A detail illustration of the 
hall shows the door and a part of the cornice of the room, together 
with two of the ten columns, five on each side, which led originally 
to a corresponding door on the north. The Roman Doric cornice is 
good, and the columns now exactly reproduced are interesting. These 
with the door treatment are the distinctly architectural features of 
the hall. On the north side of the hall are two tablets, one com- 
memorating Bulfinch, and the other relating to the preservation of 
the Bulfinch building. Doric Hall has dignity and strength, a quiet 
beauty in keeping with an entrance hall from which one is to pass to 
something richer. There seems to be little else on the first floor of 
importance in determining Bulfinch’s hand except the interesting old 
staircases with well-designed newels and decorated stair ends. 

In the rooms on the second floor, which are to-day very true to the 
original design, we see Bulfinch at his best. The photographs repro- 
duced, together with a few details, may serve to show the beauty of the 
designs. The old Senate Chamber in the east end 1s thirty-six by fifty- 
six feet on the floor, composed of a middle area thirty-six feet square 
and the addition of two bays on the south and north, each ten feet 
deep. A gallery on the west extends over the adjacent corridor. The 
bays carry an entablature from which a curved and highly ornamented 
ceiling springs, with designs on a delicate blue ground. The columns 
of the Greek Ionic order, enriched and suggesting the columns of the 
Erechtheum, have octagon bases with reed mouldings at the top. 
There were four fireplaces, two in the east wall in the bays, and two 
opposite in the west wall. 

The three curved frames at the north represent openings which 


formerly were for windows. Now, as in 1798, there are three windows 
ded 


CHARLES BULFINCH 





THE OLD SENATE CHAMBER 


in the south wall and three in the east wall, although a reprint of an 
old photograph after 1855 shows that the middle window had been 
closed. This was in the space directly back of the then President’s 
chair. On the whole, the chamber to-day has the same lines and 
decoration as when built. 

The old House, now used by the Senate, fifty-five feet square, is 
architecturally interesting, chiefly in the treatment of the domical 
ceiling, the east and west galleries and the north and south sides. The 
old arrangement of the House with square head windows is shown in 
the cuts published in 1852 and 1856; but they also show the small 
projecting galleries put in after the chamber was finished and later 
removed. The lower walls as seen to-day with a low dado, and the 

[ 82 ] 


SHAILVINGASHUdaY AO ASNOH ATO AHL 


4 
: 
4 
s 





eh. 


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AU 


sccaieaemesemmmnnceae et 





ENTATIVES 
Y AND CEILING, HOUSE OF REPRES 
GALLERY 


FRANKLIN PLACE AND MASSACHUSETTS STATE HOUSE 


finish in imitation of block construction, broken ten feet from the 
floor by a narrow reed course, date from the changes made in 1866. 
At that time the fireplaces, one in each corner, were closed. Above 
these openings, between the springing of the arches, are emblems 
representing agriculture, commerce, peace, and war. No adequate 
description of the ceiling is possible. The photograph will help, and 
should be studied with the knowledge that the dark color in the small 
circles, in the centre, and in the larger circle around it, is a delicate 
blue. In this picture is to be seen the ancient codfish — emblem of the 
importance of the codfishing — transferred from the Old State House. 
The height from the floor to the centre of the cupola is approximately 
the same as the diameter of the ring, fifty feet. 

On the second floor at the west end, our interest in the original finish 
is confined to the Council Chamber, though the plan of the old 












































































































































REPRESENTATIVES HALL, ABOUT 1852 — LOOKING NORTH 
[ 85 | 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


corridor remains, containing the staircase with its changed location. 
The Governor’s room had no part in the first plan and 1s finished to- 
day in harmony with the Council Chamber and contains an elaborate 
marble mantel, of later date than 1798. The Council Chamber is of 
especial interest because of the marked departure in its finish. The 
room has two windows at the south and two at the west, all recessed, 
and an interesting stone fireplace between the west windows, evidently 
on original lines, with an opening approximately three feet six inches 
by thirty-three inches. Whatever our perplexity regarding the con- 
struction of the west when compared with the east end, we are certain 
that the finish of the Chamber as it is to-day follows almost exactly 
the design first executed. On January 10, 1798, the day before the 
occupancy by the General Court, the ‘Columbian Centinel’ published 
a full description of the building including the Council Chamber. 
“The council chamber ...is twenty-seven feet square, and twenty 
high with a flat ceiling; the walls are finished with Corinthian pilasters 
and panels of stucco. These panels are enriched with the State arms, 
with emblems of executive power, the scale and sword of justice and 
the insignia of arts and freedom, the caduceus and cap of liberty, the 
whole decorated with wreaths of oak and laurel.’ This evidence is 
conclusive. There is no mention of the Governor’s room, but “besides 
these principal rooms there are about twenty smaller, plainly finished 
for the use of committees.’ There is little else to-day in the interior 
of the original building that can be ascribed to Bulfinch. 

An examination of old papers relating to the State House shows 
there was little change in the general design offered by Bulfinch in 
1795 from that of 1787. As early as June, 1787, a new State House 
was agitated, and on November Sth of that year Bulfinch wrote to the 
committee appointed to consider the matter submitting a plan which 

[ 86 ] 


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MASSACHUSETTS STATE HOUSE 


COUNCIL CHAMBER, 





OLD SENATE GALLERY, MASSACHUSETTS STATE HOUSE : 


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.FRANKLIN PLACE AND MASSACHUSETTS STATE HOUSE 


he said was ‘in the style of a building celebrated all over Europe.’ A 
small and unimportant sketch of one room is all that has been found 
of this plan, and no trace of any later design or plan. 

On January 21, 1795, Bulfinch wrote to Perez Morton, Esq., ‘My 
estimate of the cost of a state house was made many years since... 
my own experience since that time has convinced me of the fallacy of 
estimates in general, and especially in buildings of a public nature.’ 
No change in design is mentioned in this letter, and the estimates for 
material are practically the same as in 1787, though the cost shows 
considerable increase. Four hundred thousand brick, estimated to 
cost £400, were increased to 500,000 for £750; while both estimates 
eall for 5000 yards of plastering, 4000 yards of painting, 2500 square 
feet of window glass, and 60 squares of slating for the roof. The cost of 
18 columns, figured at £30 in 1787, was doubled in 1795, and the carving 
of the capitals had increased from £200 to £300. | 

Mr. Charles A. Cummings, at one time President of the Boston 
Society of Architects, who wrote the Introduction to the ‘Life and 
Letters of Charles Bulfinch,’ is quoted by Miss Bulfinch as saying that 
considerations of cost, etc., ‘are understood to have compelled certain 
modifications of design, of which the shortening of the wings was the 
most important.’ This can only be interpreted as meaning not short- 
ening the length of the entire building as proposed, but as lengthen- 
ing the portico, and hence in the use of twenty-four rather than of 
eighteen columns as estimated both in 1787 and 1795. Such modifica- 
tion of plan would have resulted in shorter wings as we see them now. 
Also it is to be noted that while Bulfinch’s estimate was for less than 
£7000 and the first appropriation was for £8000, the final cost was 
nearly four times that amount. Hence we can hardly suppose con- 
siderations of cost induced any lessening of proportions. 

[ 89 ] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


Many who have seen the glory of the Bulfinch State House will 
agree with the sentiment of Lord Coleridge, Lord Chief Justice of 
England, expressed in a letter dated October 26, 1883, * Far the most 
beautiful city in America, so far as I have seen, is Boston, and the 
State House is the most beautiful building in the country . . . in perfect 
taste and proportion.’ This English judgment is of peculiar interest 
because Lord Coleridge must have known and admired the building 
which undoubtedly inspired Bulfinch. At the time of the agitation for 
the preservation of the Bulfinch building in 1896, a well-known English 
architect wrote a strong letter of appreciation, declaring that the 
structure ‘forms an almost unique link in the architectural history 
of America and shows the development of the architecture of the 
English-speaking people.... Through it we can trace the esthetic 
pedigree of Bulfinch to the great line of Gibbs, Wren, and Jones.’ 
This is high praise, indeed, and true. 

Though Miss Bulfinch says that at the time of the erection of the 
State House there was not in this country any building worthy to be a 
model for such an edifice, and it is doubtful if any then existed, etc.; 
and the Reverend Stephen G. Bulfinch, the son of the architect, 
wrote, ‘the artist had neither example nor warning’ — there was such 
an example and a good one. We must remember that the State House, 
Hartford, designed by Bulfinch, was nearing completion when the 
State House at Boston was begun. But back of both was a model which 
had deeply impressed Bulfinch. Bulfinch’s letter of 1787, in which he 
speaks of the design ‘in the style of a building celebrated all over 
Europe,’ was evidently unknown to his son and to his granddaughter; 
and the Honorable Alfred S. Roe, referring to the statement in the 
‘New England Magazine’ for February, 1899, said, ‘We are left in 
ignorance as to what that structure may have been.’ But the building 

[ 90 | 


FRANKLIN PLACE AND MASSACHUSETTS STATE HOUSE 


is not obscure. When Bulfinch first submitted his design in 1787, he 
was fresh from London where Somerset House, the great Government 
building begun in 1775, had been seen and admired. A study of the 
facade of that part of the structure which contained the Navy Office 
will confirm the belief that this was the model in particular for the 
Massachusetts State House. So, too, the lines and motives in the 
Strand front are suggestive of the Connecticut State House. What- 


ever the estimate of Sir William Chambers, the architect of Somerset 





















































NAVY OFFICE, SOMERSET HOUSE, LONDON 
[ 91 ] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


House, he was a careful student of classic lines and achieved good 
proportions. It is to Bulfinch’s credit that his good taste selected 
these models and adapted them to meet the New England demands. 
There is a touch of his creative genius in the lines of the Boston dome, 
sometimes criticized for the way it is set, but following, as we see, no 


unworthy master. 








STRAND FRONT OF SOMERSET HOUSE, LONDON 


It is interesting to compare the dimensions of the three Bulfinch 
State Houses: Boston, 172 by 65 feet, portico 96 feet; Augusta, 150 by 
50 feet, portico 80 feet; Hartford, 120 by 50 feet, portico 40 feet. An- 
other influence which bears particularly on the middle portion of the 
Boston State House is seen in ‘Le Vignole Moderne’ (Part 3. Published 
in Paris, 1784) —a book which Bulfinch bought and _ inscribed, 
‘Charles Bulfinch. Paris 1786’ — showing a good dome and some 

[ 92 ] 


FRANKLIN PLACE AND MASSACHUSETTS STATE HOUSE 


motives seen in the portico at Boston. The final account was rendered 
March 4, 1800, Bulfinch continuing his service till well into the year 
1799, and the total cost we find from the records to be the first grant 
of £8000 plus successive appropriations aggregating $113,333.34. The 
change from English to United States money standards was made 
during the erection of the building. This total included the furnishings 
and the cost of erecting a small dwelling forty by twenty feet for the 
messenger and $1800 paid to each of the three agents. On March 11, 
1802, a further grant was necessary to secure and copper the dome, and 
the work was done by Paul Revere and Son at a cost of over $4000 
under the direction of the three agents. 

It has been said that the Beacon Hill Monument, Franklin Place, 
and the new State House introduced a new era for Boston; all were 
due to the genius of Charles Bulfinch. This brings us to the year 1799 


and the beginning of a new period of service to the town. 


CHAPTER V 
‘THE GREAT SELECTMAN’ 

ULFINCH’S long and unique service to the Town of Boston as 
B Chairman of the Board of Selectmen began with his election to 
the Board March 11, 1799, and continued for almost nineteen years. 
Any accurate and vivid description of these years of faithful devotion 
is impossible because, besides the brief and often incomplete reports of 
the town meetings and of the Selectmen, there is almost nothing else. 
Josiah Quincey wrote a ‘Municipal History’ of Boston dealing almost 
wholly with his own administration as mayor for five years; Charles 
Bulfinch left only a short summary of his nineteen years covering but 
a little more than two printed pages of less than one thousand words. 
Boston’s ‘Great Selectman,’ as he has been called, he was indeed; but 
great not because of any radical reforms, but only because of patient 
years of efficient integrity that lay between the brilliant and the un- 
colored routine. Boston’s trade and commerce were increasing rapidly, 
and up to the embargo of December, 1807, when Boston led in registered 
tonnage amounting to more than one third of the total in the United 
States, every phase of civic and social life was expanding. By now the 
population had increased to nearly twenty-five thousand. All these 
conditions made insistent demands on all departments of town ad- 
ministration. The spirit of expansion must be tempered with wise 
discretion. How wise, how far-sighted, how fair-minded, conservative 
without being narrow, ever with the interests of the common good 
uppermost, the chief executive was during these nineteen years, we 


discover amid the prosy records, amid the confessed irksome duties 
[ 94 ] 


THE GREAT SELECTMAN 


to one whose natural taste and character was unsuited to obligations 
which were made glorious by patient daily toil. 

There are two kinds of faithful public servants — one, ever in the 
public eye for a brief season inspired by difficult problems and their 
moral issues; the other, less prominent, dealing through long periods 
with commonplace matters that seem unrelated to large results and 
which therefore dull rather than elate. It may be that the latter are 
entitled to and receive the greater reward —if not the popular 
applause. As a public servant, Charles Bulfinch falls within both of 
these classes, but the second class strongly outweighs the first. 

When the Board of Selectmen organized March 13, 1799, ‘it was 
unanimously agreed that Mr. Bulfinch has the precedence by seniority 
of election [due to his previous service on the Board] and he was 
introduced to the Chair accordingly.’ Meetings were held weekly and 
very often at shorter intervals, and were concerned with almost every- 
thing from giving a badge to a chimney sweep to paying respects to the 
Chief Executive of the United States. There is a seeming endless 
succession of votes on drains, paving streets, widening streets, besides 
all the work incident to new streets which in increasing number must 
be laid out and paved, sidewalks made, etc. The wide contrast in the 
streets of that period and now is seen in the careful restriction to loads 
which no more than two horses could draw except during the frozen 
ground of winter, in general to loads not exceeding one ton. In 
February of this year a company was incorporated for bringing fresh 
water into town by ‘subterraneous pipes, thus necessitating the open- 
ing of streets and additional oversight by the Selectmen. The constant 
widening of streets sometimes worked hardship or again met with 
opposition. A story has come down of one incident where the owner 
of a building which projected into the street threatened to shoot the 

[ 95 | 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


first man to mount a ladder to begin the work of destruction. Mr. 
Bulfinch calmly mounted the ladder and the work proceeded, doubt- 
less to the delight of the assembled spectators and the disgust of the 
bluffer. Determined persistence to build steps or other portions of 
structures into streets that had been widened, after all efforts at fair 
conciliation had failed, resulted in prosecution under the law. Licenses 
for the owners of hacks must be signed, inspectors of chimneys, of salt 
pork, pickled fish and beef appointed, regulations made regarding 
markets, stalls, and the sale of nearly every commodity. 

There were Overseers of the Poor, and a Board of Health first ap- 
‘pointed in 1798; besides these departments the Selectmen exercised 
oversight in all matters including finance and participation in the duties 
of the School Committee. A Municipal Court, deemed necessary in 1797, 
was established by Act of the General Court in 1800 and the salary of the 
Judge was fixed by the town at five hundred dollars. For all this work 
there was no financial compensation to the members of the Board or to 
its Chairman. Hence it was a matter of considerable importance in 
the fortune of Charles Bulfinch when the Board, on May 10, 1799, 
created the office of Superintendent of Police at a salary of six hun- 
dred dollars, and then unanimously elected Bulfinch to that position. 

In upon this commonplace round of important duties comes a 
breath from the world across the sea, in an entry under date of July 
15, 1799, which reads, ‘The young men of Boston having by their 
Committee requested of the Selectmen permission to have the Bells of 
the Town rung from 6 to half past 7 o’clock on the Morning of the 
17th Inst. in commemoration of that act of their Governm’t. which 
absolved America from those ties which France by her unprincipled 
conduct had proved on her part to be no longer obligatory.’ Per- 
mission to have the bells rung for one hour was granted. 

[ 96 | 


THE GREAT SELECTMAN 


Perusing the new Town By-Laws, issued in 1801 under the name of 
Charles Bulfinch, Superintendent of Police, who engages that ‘No 
exertion shall be wanting on his part, to maintain that good order and 
government, so essential to the well-being, the safety and happiness of 
the inhabitants of this metropolis,’ we wonder what part Bulfinch had 
in framing these laws and how keen was his zest in executing them. 
Here are a few samples; to avoid danger and disturbance on the Lord’s 
Day, ‘no chariot, chaise or other carriage shall at such times be driven 
at a greater rate than a walk or moderate foot pace on penalty of $2.’ 
No horse could be led on the Lord’s Day to any pond to be washed or 
watered; and no carriage was allowed to enter or leave the town on 
the Lord’s Day without permit from a Justice of the Peace. In these 
and many other petty ways is seen the Puritan spirit. Laws against 
forestalling in food (profiteering we say now) must have had Bul- 
finch’s hearty approval as they do from most of us to-day. ‘And all 
persons having the least regard to justice and to the poor inhabitants 
of this town, are requested to give information against every such 
offender to the Selectmen, that he or she may be brought to condign 
punishment, and for which offense the Selectmen are hereby directed 
vigorously to prosecute every offender, at the court or courts proper 
to try the same. Here is the tyranny of the law, the dead hand of 
bigotry from which with all our love of law and order it is hard to 
escape. So doubtless Charles Bulfinch found. 

The town budget of $60,000 voted in 1799 had increased in 1807 to 
$90,000; but supplemented by various incomes from rents and sales of 
land. With no reports available the actual cost of town business can- 
not be determined. Through all these years there were insistent 
demands for better accommodations for the poor and the criminal, 
but, though reports of committees recommending better conditions 

[ 97 | 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


were adopted unanimously, little was done. Economy was the rule. 
Yet it is surprising to see that in the estimates for the year beginning 
March, 1807, the sum of $14,400 is set down for schools and $18,000 
for Overseers of the Poor, though part of this latter included work- 
house and jail expenses. 

After years of agitation the new almshouse was begun in Leverett 


Street in 1799 and completed probably in 1801. The final account was 






































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































ALMSHOUSE, LEVERETT STREET, BOSTON 


rendered January 11, 1802, from which it would appear that the cost 
was nearly $50,000, including $2400 paid to the three agents; Thomas 
Dawes, Samuel Brown, and George B. Minot. This institution re- 
placed the old almshouse on Beacon and Park Streets and was built on 
land extending down to the Charles River so that a ‘sea wall’ was 
necessary. Bulfinch was the architect, though no record of payment 
has been found. Fortunately, we have an old illustration which, with 


a description by Shaw written before 1817, enables us to judge some- 
[ 98 ] 


THE GREAT SELECTMAN 


thing of its architectural merits. A three-story building of brick two 
hundred and seventy by fifty-six feet with white marble fascias, im- 
posts, and keystones, it had four staircases ten feet wide and a central 
hall forty by fifty feet and above this a chapel of the same dimensions, 
each fifteen feet high. The arched windows in the middle were finished 
with fluted pilasters. In the basement were three kitchens and the 
building seems to have been well planned for the comfort of the in- 
mates. The enclosing walls of brick with handsome gates do not ap- 
pear in the picture which is from a lithograph by A. Bowen. 

At the very meeting that accepted the report the voters inquired if 
some part of the almshouse could be fitted up for use as a workhouse. 
The committee, of which Bulfinch was Chairman, reported, at a meet- 
ing of the town January 21st, that no part of the house could be set 
apart as a Bridewell or house of correction without serious consequence 
to the charity inmates and at very considerable expense, that a 
separate building was necessary and would cost between twenty and 
thirty thousand dollars; nevertheless, in view of the present burden on 
the town the committee recommended temporary measures and it was 
so voted. Thus this important matter was left for more than a decade. 

With the opening of the new century, the demand for more land for 
business and residence became increasingly insistent. West Boston 
along both sides of Cambridge Street had gradually grown since 1785; 
and after 1800 the west slope of Beacon Hill, a large bulk of which was 
included in the Copley sale in 1795 to Otis, Mason, Joy, and Swan, 
slowly filled with residences of the finer sort. Waste lands began to 
be reclaimed and filled; and as a considerable amount of these lands 
was the property of the town, the town began to consider means of 
selling or leasing. A large measure of the work incident to opening up 
these lands fell to Bulfinch, including doubtless the various reports of 

[ 99 ] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


the committees signed by him as Chairman. These reports, short and 
to the point, reveal patient toil and practical judgment. 

The first definite action by the town on the Neck lands, following 
the recommendation of the committee, was to appoint the Selectmen 
and six other men trustees to lay out the land in streets and lots and to 
sell the same. We note that Thomas Dawes, whose practical judgment 
was sought in so many ways, was one of the six men appointed to serve 
with the Selectmen. Approximately thirteen thousand dollars was 
realized from sales during the next ten years; and in 1811 there were 
between forty and fifty acres of Neck lands ‘judiciously laid out,’ for 
_ which ‘at present there is no demand.’ 

Following this, and almost as a consequence, was the project of a 
bridge to Dorchester Neck, due to the enterprise of William Tudor, 
Harrison Gray Otis, and Jonathan Mason, and the subsequent annex- 
ation of that part of Dorchester in 1804 and called South Boston. 
All that territory was carefully surveyed and laid out in streets bear- 
ing, not names, but numbers and letters as we find them to-day. South 
Boston Bridge was incorporated March 6, 1804, opened October 10, 
1805, and continued a toll bridge for twenty-seven years. The rights 
of the town to land and marshes lying near this bridge were involved 
and eventually increased the receipts of the treasury. 

The next project to increase the land area was for filling the mill 
pond which, warmly debated in a number of town meetings, finally in 
1804 was approved and a committee appointed ‘to treat with the 
supposed Proprietors of the Mill Pond,’ though the General Court on 
March 9, 1804, had incorporated ‘John Peck, Benjamin Hichborn and 
Mary Gilman owners and proprietors of water mills, mill pond and 
land under the same and their associates.’ This committee consisted 
again of the Selectmen and six others, and among the latter we find 

[ 100 | 








MAP OF ‘ NECK,’ BOSTON 


Lae 





THE GREAT SELECTMAN 


once more *‘Honab’l. Thomas Dawes, Esq.’ The matter dragged on 
through town meetings, with proposals and counter-proposals, to a 
binding contract in 1807 in which it was agreed that the town should 
havea certain part of the filled area; and the Selectmen were authorized 
to carry the agreement into full effect. The filling was to be done at 
the expense of the proprietors within twenty years, and the estimate 
of land to which the town would be entitled, exclusive of canal, streets, 
and markets, approximated nearly two hundred thousand feet. 

Rather unusual interest attaches to the two indentures and the two 
plans on parchment now preserved in the City Hall archives. The first 
indenture, dated July 24, 1807, signed by the agent of the mill 
corporation and the commissioners for the town, is based on a plan by 
Charles Bulfinch with the same date as the indenture and bearing the 
signature of the agent and the Chairman of the Commission. The 
second indenture, dated July 7, 1808, bears the names of the agent and 
the Selectmen, and was executed after other plans had been considered, 
one of which was a ‘new plan’ presented to the Board of Selectmen 
April 27, 1808, by the Chairman. Though the second parchment plan 
bears no writing, it seems reasonable that this is the ‘new plan’ made by 
Bulfinch, though this cannot be stated positively. These two plans show 
the filled area and the streets proposed bearing names some of which are 
in use to-day, and give us some idea of the magnitude of the project 
especially for that time. Work was begun at once and proceeded for a 
number of years, receiving in due time the top of Beacon Hill and in- 
volving many matters for consideration, bridges, sewers, claims, etc., 
the bulk of which devolved upon the Chairman of the selectmen, who 
was made chairman of a special committee of three to act on this matter. 
Osgood Carleton had made a survey by September 7, 1807, and the 
names of some proposed streets were ordered inserted in the plan. 

[ 103 ] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


At the commencement of the work in 1807, an amusing scene was 
enacted marking the beginning of the claim of the Governor Hancock 
heirs to the enclosed part of Beacon Hill which they proposed to use 
to fill the mill pond. The heirs had signified their intention of entering 
upon the land, and the Chairman and two other members of the board 
of Selectmen were appointed a committee to prevent encroachment. 
At a meeting of the Selectmen September 16, 1807, ‘. . . The Chairman 
Reported that on the 15 Inst. agreeable to the direction of the Board, 
the Comm® had repaired to Beacon hill, and there met with Eben’ 
Hancock Esq. and John Hancock and M' Samuel Spear who appeared 
to claim and enter upon the enclosed part of the Hill in behalf of the 
Heirs of the late Governor Hancock — Mess: Hancock and Spear each 
of them took a Shovel full of Earth and threw it into the Cart of M" 
James Bird — The Chairman then forbid them to proceed and ordered 
them to withdraw in the name of the Town and the Comm*® taking 
each of them by the Arm led them from the enclosed part of the 
Hill into the Street, and ordered them not to enter again for any 
such purpose — M’ Rufus Tower, M*™ Levi Joy and M* Thomas C. 
Dillaway, were present and were desired to take such notice as would 
enable them to be Witnesses of the transaction if called upon in 
future.’ A court judgment was rendered in November, 1809, and in 
1810 Beacon Hill began to descend into the mill pond. In the following 
year the town sold land on the hill and the work of fillmg proceeded 
without interruption. 

About the time of the beginning of the agitation for filling the mill 
pond, Uriah Cotting suggested a project which involved India Wharf 
and Broad Street. Cotting, whose prominence in real estate matters in 
Boston increased from this time, was associated with Harrison Gray 
Otis, Rufus G. Amory, Francis C. Lowell, and others. India Wharf lay 

[ 104 ] 


NOLSOd ‘GNOd TTIW AHL JO LNAWdOTHAGG WOH NW Id 





oT 





THE GREAT SELECTMAN 


at the foot of India Street, a street laid out as early as 1804, but it is 
quite likely that this or some wharf was there before 1806 or 1805. The 
Broad Street Association was incorporated February 11, 1805, and at 
the meeting of the Board March 20th a plan was considered which 
may be the one drawn by Bulfinch, now preserved in the City Hall and 
inscribed, ‘Charles Bulfinch, 1805.’ On June 24th a bond for $20,000 
was stipulated, the lines of the proposed street accepted, and ‘the 
chairman was desired to employ workmen to stake out the street,’ thus 
establishing the actual beginning of the work. The plan called for 
a seventy-foot street running from State Street to Battery March 
Street, necessitating the purchase of land, the removal of numerous 
old buildings, and was a project of considerable importance. Later, 
in 1808, Battery March Street, below its junction with Broad, was 
widened and named Broad Street, thus continuing Broad Street to 
India Wharf. 

It has been thought that the India Wharf stores were built later be- 
cause India Wharf was incorporated March 3, 1808, but we not only 
are certain that India Wharf was in existence by 1806, but we find the 
first deed of conveyance of three of these stores dated January 1, 1807. 
These stores are described as having an arch in the middle, which is 
confirmed by an old picture showing the stores before Atlantic Avenue 
was cut through, destroying the arch but leaving a few stores on the 
west, and practically all of those beyond the arch toward the harbor. 
There is a tradition of documentary evidence that Bulfinch designed 
these stores, doubtless true because of his association with the men 
connected with the enterprise, but the evidence has not been found 
and no plan other than that of Broad Street, 1805. The general 
exterior of the remaining buildings is little changed, still carrying 
something of the romance and venture of past days. The architectural 

[21075] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 





EAST END OF INDIA WHARF STORES IN 1922 


features are in the arch which was swept away when Atlantic Avenue 
was built, the good proportions of the side elevation and in the interest- 
ing east end. A careful study of this end and the stores which remain, 
with few exterior changes, leads to the conviction that the tradition of 
Bulfinch design is true. 

In all these important enterprises which so expanded the land area 
and made possible the future growth of Boston, Bulfinch was closely 
associated both officially and professionally ; but throughout the whole 

[ 108 ] 


THE GREAT SELECTMAN 


period of his service to the town it is impossible to form any correct 
and satisfying judgment of the value of that service. Yet over and 
again we come upon incidents which testify to the soundness of his 
mind, to his practical wisdom, and to his moral integrity, devotion to 
the common good being the dominant motive. 

During the years following the disaster of Franklin Place, Bulfinch 
must have found relaxation from his activities for the town and in 
architecture almost wholly in his home and amid the very small circle 
of relatives and friends. While the family continued to reside in 
Boston, King’s Chapel had the loyal support of husband and wife, but 
there were no clubs, and few societies claimed his interest. On October 
1, 1801, the Massachusetts Historical Society honored itself and Bul- 
finch by electing him a resident member, recording ‘that in considera- 
tion of the generous donation of the library room to the Society by 
Mr. Bulfinch he be exempt from paying $8 admission fee and also from 
the annual payment of $2.’ He continued a member till his removal to 
Washington, attending the meetings occasionally and serving on a few 
committees, but there is no record of any historical contribution to the 
work of the society. Later he was continued as a resident member till 
his death. His service to the town was increasingly arduous and to- 
gether with professional work left him scant time or energy for social 
activities; but a dull or uninteresting life for him it was not. Love of 
home, professional taste, and duty well performed made up his life. 

Boston had steadily advanced in population and commercial 1m- 
portance through the administrations of Washington and Adams and 
the greater part of the essentially democratic administration of Jeffer- 
son. Jefferson was known to be in sympathy with the desire of the 
French people for larger social and political freedom and naturally he 
voiced the sentiment of a large majority of the American people. In 

[ 109 ] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


spite of the terrors and excesses of the French Revolution, this senti- 
ment had continued, though much damped for a time, and with a 
growing fear of the power of aristocracy and wealth, Jefferson was 
elected President in 1800. During his first administration all went 
well, but gradually England, which had imposed an easy yoke at first, 
increased her exactions, which by 1806 began to be resented. One of 
the first incidents to stir deeply the feelings of Boston was the im- 
pressment attack of the British frigate Leopard upon the United 
States frigate Chesapeake. The citizens of Norfolk at once protested 
the outrage and sent a letter to the Chairman of the Selectmen of 
_ Boston, whereupon a town meeting was called July 16, 1807, and 
resolutions passed commending the ‘patriotic and spirited conduct’ 
of the citizens of Norfolk, ete. This outrage made clear to the people 
of Boston and Massachusetts that England was hostile to the United 
States both in commercial and political affairs and a declaration of war 
by Jefferson at this time would have met with quick response by 
Massachusetts. But Jefferson’s mind worked in a different groove, 
resulting on December 22d in the proclamation of an embargo which 
prohibited American vessels clearing from American harbors, and 
coasting and fishing vessels from landing cargoes outside the United 
States. This order, which operated not only against England and 
France, but all foreign ports, fell upon Boston and Massachusetts like 
a blight. 

The Massachusetts Federalists in a rage protested that this measure 
would ruin American commerce, a prophecy which a year later seemed 
sure of fulfillment; but the Federalists were well-nigh impotent. Their 
control of Massachusetts politics, lost in 1807, was regained in 1809 in 
the election of Governor Gore only in consequence of the agitation 
over the embargo, lost again in 1810, to be recovered in 1812 and held 

fate | 


THE GREAT SELECTMAN 


for a long period. Massachusetts commerce was not ruined, but greatly 
restricted, with the consequence of trade depression and much suffer- 
ing. 

The embargo was a prelude to the War of 1812, as the protests, in- 
creasing in number and vehemence, were forerunners of the Hartford 
Convention. At a meeting of the town August 9, 1808, a resolution of 
Jonathan Mason ‘to petition the President of the United States to 
suspend the embargo either wholly or partially,’ ‘ after a spirited debate 
of some length,’ was passed by ‘a very great majority,’ and it was voted 
that the Selectmen transmit the petition to the President, and also to 
communicate the proceedings of the town to the Selectmen of other 
towns. This action was mild when compared with the next resolution 
of the town, at a meeting in the following January called at the urgent 
and determined request of a number of inhabitants, foremost of whom 
was Thomas H. Perkins, one of the largest merchants to feel the heavy 
weight of the embargo. Faneuil Hall was packed at the adjourned 
meeting January 24th to hear the report of the committee appointed 
the preceding day and composed of Thomas H. Perkins, J. C. Jones, 
Samuel Dexter, Dr. Joseph Warren, William Sullivan, Jonathan 
Mason, and Theodore Lyman. This committee was charged with 
preparing a petition to the General Court to procure relief from the 
grievances suffered in consequence of the abolition of foreign commerce, 
and the draft of its resolutions ‘being read and largely debated was 
accepted by a large majority of citizens.’ The language of these 
resolutions in no uncertain terms declares a determination to find 
means of relief from oppressive intolerance and final ruin, and solemnly 
pledges ‘everything dear to freemen, to support whatever measures 
the Legislature of this Commonwealth may think proper to preserve 
the rights and liberties of our Country.’ It was voted that the Select- 

Pane | 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


men present the petition to the Legislature which was carried into 
effect by the Chairman. 

Mr. Bulfinch’s connection with all these events was intimate, and 
though he has left no record of his personal attitude we are warranted 
in assuming it was wise and well-balanced. Secession was in the very 
air and in the blood. Josiah Quincy had found sufficient cause for such 
action in the Louisiana Purchase; and now the determined stand by 
New England and New York forced Congress to repeal the Embargo 
Act, except against England and France, the repeal taking effect in 
March, 1809. The immediate result of the repeal of this act, conceived 
in folly and of immense practical advantage to England, was revival 
of business on every side. 

The record of Bulfinch’s services to the town, beyond the larger 
enterprises and events we have considered, lies in an increasing amount 
of minor yet always important affairs. New streets, widening, paving, 
sewers, claims, adjustments, the steady stream of petty details, in- 
fringements of laws, so many matters left to the Chairman for atten- 
tion and final execution — no words can make vivid this exceptional 
service of a man who was receiving a salary of $600 as Superintendent 
of Police. The town work had become so great that Mr. Bulfinch 
laid the following letter before the Board, November 26, 1810: 

“Gentlemen, In the estimate of expences for the present year, a sum 
was named for the police department, which was read in Town Meet- 
ing, and was adopted with other appropriations. —I have not yet 
brought the subject before the board, from an unwillingness to make 
claims upon the public; but I must now request you to consider that 
the Town service occupies nearly my whole time, at home, in Office 
hours and in the Street, and renders it impossible for me to engage in 
any regular business, except that of the Town. 

[ 112 ] 


THE GREAT SELECTMAN 


‘TI have long wished to be able to serve the Town upon the same 
independent footing with the other members of the Board: but the 
stagnation of business and the disappointment of expectations in the 
two past years have prevented my obtaining my wish in this respect. 

‘Under the circumstances I request the Board to consider the 
propriety of making my compensation in proportion to that of other 
Town Officers who receive pay for their services.’ 

This communication was read when Mr. Bulfinch had withdrawn, 
and after due consideration $400 was voted in addition to the regular 
salary of $600. During the ten years when his salary was only $600, 
his professional services were in general demand, but though no estimate 
can be made of compensation because of the lack of records, it does 
not seem likely that the amount was large. In more than one instance 
his services were given, and never was the motive of self-interest large. 
There was some improvement in his financial affairs after 1800, but at 
the highest his income was small. 

It is worthy of note that Boston had a population of 34,000 in 1810 
and a debt of less than $43,000. In that year $82,000 was appropriated, 
which included $15,300 for schools and $20,000 for the Overseers of the 
Poor, the latter item covering expenses for the workhouse. There was 
an income approximating $14,000 from rentals of the Old State House, 
Faneuil Hall, and markets, and additional sums from the sale of town 
lands, of which a large amount was still available at the mill pond and 
on the Neck. 

The record of routine work is interspersed with little incidents which 
betoken the spirit of the times not yet free from Puritanism, and 
others which prophesy the larger humanism. There is still complaint 
of carriages disturbing church services. Skating on the Frog Pond on 
the Lord’s Day is forbidden ‘as a breach of the Sabbath,’ amusements 

iets 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


are strictly censored in consideration of the morals of youth, and the 
judgment of the Board recorded that exhibitions of what an applicant 
termed ‘the art of Pugilism . . . should not be authorized by the Govern- 
ment of the Town.’ In 1807 the Selectmen voted to appropriate three 
hundred and fifty dollars to procure ‘an elegant picture with frame 
complete of Peter Faneuil, Esq.’ to be placed in Faneuil Hall, the 
same to be painted by Henry Sargent ‘in the best manner.’ 

Numbering and registration of all trucks and sleds were included in 
‘Rules and Orders’ prepared by the Chairman and made effective by 
the Board for July 8, 1811. This was one of many attempts to relieve 
the increasing congestion of the principal business streets. For many 
years prior to this time loads had been restricted in the interests of the 
streets, but not till 1817 do we come upon a strong protest against 
cruelty to horses. In that year a committee, reporting at the town 
meeting on the condition of the congested streets and suggesting new 
rules for the regulation of trucks, call attention also to the * Cruelty 
which is so often practiced in the streets on horses used in the draft and 
are certain that they express the feelings of their fellow citizens in 
reprobating this practice as inhuman in those who are guilty of it, and 
as disgraceful to the town.’ 

Under the date of July 3, 1811, in the Selectmen’s records we read, 
‘The Chairman being absent, Mr. Oliver was chosen Chairman Pro. 
tem. by ballot’; and again under date of August 7th we find Bulfinch 
present, and the routine of business went on as usual. The meaning 
of this absence of a month is plain, the Chairman of the Board was in 
jail. The immediate cause of his incarceration was due doubtless to 
court judgments obtained by obscure litigants who otherwise never 
would have appeared in the annals of history, and for amounts petty 
in themselves, but a part of an accumulation of debts which had 

[ 114 ] 


THE GREAT SELECTMAN 


engulfed him. These debts were incurred in an enterprise of merit and 
promise which in Bulfinch’s case came to disaster from sheer lack of 
capital, while for others better advantaged the financial result was 
large. 

The filling of the West Boston flats on the Charles River was an- 
other undertaking which sought to meet the demands for more land. 
Encouraged by what Otis, Mason, and Joy were doing, Bulfinch, who 
had retained in 1796 some land on these flats because deemed of no 
value, began filling in 1805, completing the work in 1807. Convey- 
ances of parts of this land were made by him in 1806 and 1807, and 
doubtless all would have gone well but for the embargo of 1807; and 
though he struggled on till after the lifting of the embargo in 1809, we 
find his interests in the hands of two trustees in April, 1810, together 
with a certified plan of land at West Boston Bridge bordering on 
Charles and Cambridge Streets. After this there was little hope. 
The shadow of war crept closer, money was tight, there was little 
demand for land; hence the insistent demands of creditors could not 
be met. He could not wait as did the other men engaged in the same 
enterprise and thus reap an almost sure reward, and evidently he 
could not borrow enough more to satisfy the very few creditors who 
demanded payment. The effects of this calamity were in some respects 
worse than the first and he did not recover till his removal to Washing- 
ton in December, 1817. 

His confinement in jail in July, 1811, was not a culmination in 
bankruptcy proceedings as we are liable to infer when we read Mrs. 
Bulfinch’s record, but an incident as was the removal from Bulfinch 
Street in 1815 to a small house in Tremont Street, due to increasing 
pressure resulting from conditions caused by the war. Then, too, in 
the spring of 1813, Bulfinch was confined to the house for three months 

[ 115 ] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


as the result of a fall on the ice which fractured his leg causing perma- 
nent lameness and considerable inconvenience for nearly three years. 
Competitors in architecture also reduced his income in that line. 
Fortune smiled on him for a few years after 1800, but increased her 
frowns from 1807 to 1817, and the month in jail must have been dark 
indeed. 

Here is an amazing fact! The Chairman of Boston’s Selectmen, the 
chief executive of a town of thirty-five thousand people, serving with 
unstinted devotion on a salary of one thousand dollars, increased from 
six hundred dollars in November, 1810, as chief of police, a man whose 
honor and integrity were ever above reproach, allowed to remain in 
jail for failure to meet a few notes — not an hour only, but a month! 
Facts unknown to us might soften our condemnation, but this absence 
was a stain upon the town. Charles Bulfinch was a poor business man, 
as he confesses, and the tangle in his affairs which he made worse by 
procrastination was not easily straightened. It is inconceivable that 
the bulk of his creditors, whose names we know to the number of 
nineteen, nearly all his friends to whom he owed a total of nine thou- 
sand dollars, in no individual case exceeding five hundred dollars, 
should have borne him ill-will or have been indifferent to his plight. 
Why he was suffered to remain in jail so long or what process released 
him, we shall probably never know. He returned to his duties humili- 
ated that he had failed, shamed at the town’s disgrace, but with 
integrity of principle unimpaired. 

From the records of the General Court we learn that Bulfinch 
retained, in 1796, one at least of three townships in the ° Eastern 
Lands’ (Maine) which he had acquired in 1795. In 1805 he petitions 
to be released from obligations in number two. 

On August 26th, the Board for the second time voted an additional 

[ 116 ] 


THE GREAT SELECTMAN 


four hundred dollars to the six hundred dollar salary of the Superin- 
tendent of Police; but there was no important event after Bulfinch 
returned to duty to break the steady routine of town business till the 
outbreak of war with England. We pause here to consider the designs 
in architecture which Bulfinch executed during the period of his civil 


career we have just reviewed. 


CHAPTER VI 
A VARIETY OF DESIGNS 

URING the more than fourteen years of Bulfinch’s service 
1) as chief executive of Boston prior to the war, the town grew 
apace. The expansion in land area in which he was so active was a part 
of a general growth involving building operations both public and 
private, where his influence was even more marked. Some of this was 
in connection with town business, but the bulk lay wholly outside. 
There are but slight records or hints of financial compensation, but a 
richer reward consists in his contribution to civic advance enriched by 
his artistic spirit. 

The petition of the West Boston inhabitants (Ward 7) for a school in 
that section resulted in a new school building erected at the corner of 
Chardon and Hawkins Streets in 1803. It seems likely that this is one 
of the ‘2 large school-houses, brick,’ listed by Bulfinch, but no more 
has been determined. 

Bulfinch’s name is associated with court-houses in Suffolk, Norfolk, 
Worcester, Middlesex and Essex Counties. The first record is found 
under date of May 14, 1795, at Dedham, “ordered by the Court that 
... the committee apply to Mr. Bulfinch, architect in Boston fora plan 
of a decent cupola or turret to the Court House agreeable to the rules 
of architecture, for a building of such site, use and magnitude’; and 
Nathaniel Ames records in his diary a few days later that Mr. Bul- 
finch sends word that he will attend to the matter. This court-house 
built of wood was finished in April, 1796; the only known illustration 
of it is found in a painting of the village executed at about that time. 

The outstanding features of the Worcester Court-House of brick, 

LL Sal 


A VARIETY OF DESIGNS 


begun in 1801, later changed and then removed, are the beautiful 
cupola on lines somewhat different from any other by Bulfinch, and 
the facade with the arched recesses for windows with the Bulfinch 
touch. The statue of Justice is 
preserved at the Worcester His- 
torical Society, and in the office 
of the County Commissioner is 
Bulfinch’s drawing of the front 
elevation signed and dated. Evi- 
dence that the building was 
erected substantially as designed 
as found in an old print, but 
there is no illustration of the 
interior. 

Another Worcester design, that 
of the first building of the Wor- 


cester Bank, may be credited to 








Bulfinch. Thomas’s diary rec- 





ords, ‘Mr. Thomas was appointed 
to apply to Charles Bulfinch for COURT-HOUSE, WORCESTER, 1801 
drafts of the interior and ex- mss ra 
terior.’ This structure, three stories high with string-course, was 
occupied October 6, 1804. An old illustration is our only means of 
judging of the merits of the building and no other records have been 
found. 

A combined court-house and town house in Newburyport voted 
October 2, 1804, built of brick in 1805, was designed by Bulfinch. In 
the reproduction of the old pencil sketch we see an open arched portico 
in front supporting a second story, above which was a pediment with a 

be beehd 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


figure of Justice. The illustration of the latter is from a photograph. 
‘It escaped the great fire of 1811,’ says Ashton R. Willard, writing in 
the ‘New England Magazine,’ November, 1890, “but it met with a 
worse fate in 1853 when it was changed over into the taste of the day. 
The change was so thorough that no one could now discover any 
traces of Bulfinch’s handiwork about it. The arches were closed 
making a solid front wall, the figure of Justice removed, and the whole 
building ‘covered with mastic.’ The original structure is interesting in 
its lines and certain details and in the facade motive. 

Bulfinch designed the State’s Prison at Charlestown which was 
under consideration as early as 1801 and was ordered built by the 


General Court in 1803. Bulfinch was appointed an agent, and that the 





ELEVATION OF THE MASSACHUSETTS STATE PRISON 


compensation thus received was his only return for the design is seen 
in a Resolve of the Court of June 22, 1803, ‘whereas Charles Bulfinch 
was formerly appointed agent for building the State’s Prison and 


incurred considerable expense in procuring plans for same... he is 
[ 120 ] 


A VARIETY OF DESIGNS 


hereby appointed agent with the three commissioners.’ These three 
commissioners were Edward H. Robbins, Peleg Coffin, and Jonathan 
Hunnewell. Bulfinch’s share as one of the agents approximated $1500. 
The building, finished in 1805 at a cost of $160,000, is two hundred feet 
long with a middle projection of sixty-two feet, and though displaying 
little beauty has considerable structural interest. The walls of granite 
are approximately three feet six inches thick, slightly finished on the 
outside but unhewn on the in- 
side. The old cut shows the same 
lines seen to-day, except that 
the cupola and two flights of 
steps have been removed and 
changes made in the windows. 
The cell walls, ceilings, and 
floors are of stone. The special 
structural interest is found in 
the stairs in the west end built of 
solid granite blocks with eleven- 
inch tread and eight-inch rise set 


into the wall in true cantilever 





fashion. These have an iron rail, 


STAIRS, MASSACHUSETTS STATE PRISON 


one-inch balusters, and a newel 
post with pine cone top. The first landing at the turn in these stairs 
is supported by an arch. The east stairs, now changed, were un- 
doubtedly of the same construction. There is a fearful quaintness in 
the cells and the whole building, but no hint in the present humane 
administration, as the writer saw it, of past conditions in America 
which Dickens severely criticized and pronounced barbarous. He may 
not have seen this prison or the addition of 1828 made in the same 
[ 121 ] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


style and construction; though it is not unlikely that both State and 
municipal penal conditions were then open to his severe condemnation. 

The historical association with Faneuil Hall, Boston, is far more 
interesting than its architecture; yet its architectural features are by 
no means insignificant. Smibert’s building, one hundred by forty feet, 
finished and occupied in 1742, comes down to us only in some portions 


of the south and east walls. The interesting old safe built into the wall 








FANEUIL HALL BEFORE ENLARGEMENT 


where it may be found to-day is said to have come through the 1761 
fire and become a part of the rebuilt structure of 1762. For the rest we 
have recourse only to imagination. The 1762 building emerges a little 
clearer. Old cuts help us to realize something of the lines with the 
pilaster ornamentation and the cupola. What Bulfinch did in 1805 
was to double the width of the building and add a third story, chang- 
ing the cupola from the middle of the roof to the east end of the en- 
larged building. It is not probable that this cupola is prior to 1762, 
though the window-openings in the two stories in the south wall and 
[ 122 ] 


A VARIETY OF DESIGNS 


the pilasters may be. Mr. Abram English Brown, who wrote the 
interesting and valuable ‘History of Faneuil Hall’ (1901), said that 
the south wall was not disturbed in 1805, ‘and was in 1898 found to be 
as firm as when erected in 1742 though there are unmistakable evi- 


dences of the fire of 1761 to be seen on the inner side.’ Bulfinch con- 






















































































































































































































































































HUE TT TALE 



































FANEUIL HALL 


White lines show elevation of old building 


tinued the Tuscan and Doric pilasters on the two lower stories and 
added the Ionic pilasters to the new upper story, thus perpetuating the 
original character of the 1762, if not of the earlier, building. 

The first floor in the earlier and later structure was devoted to a 
market, and the building contained the principal offices for town 
business. On the second floor is the large hall seventy-six feet square 
and twenty-eight feet high with galleries on three sides. The finish of 

[ 123 ] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


the hall, dignified and good, seems in harmony with the many histori- 
cal associations, but it is impossible to determine whether Bulfinch 
followed the old finish, or designs of his own, though the entrance 
staircase 1s doubtless his and of interest. There is an interesting report 
by Bulfinch on comple- 
tion of the building. in 
which he states, ‘on the 
outside it has been the 
aim of the agents to con- 
form to the original style 
of the building,’ but there 
is no reference to the in- 
terior. 

In 1839, Bulfinch sent 
the plans to the Mayor, 
Samuel A. Eliot, who re- 
turned ‘the thanks of the 
City Government... for 
the plans and the state- 
ment accompanying them 


which you have sent to 





this office for preserva- 


STAIRS DETAIL, FANEUIL HALL 


tion in the city archives.’ 
But no trace of these plans has been found. The small windows over 
the third row are interesting, and give light to the quarters of the Ancient 
and Honorable Artillery Company, the oldest military organization in 
America, having quarters in the old building before 1805, and in the new 
since 1806. The enlargement was ordered by the Selectmen in May, 
1805, and the hall was used for the March meeting in 1806. The cost 

[ 124 ] 


A VARIETY OF DESIGNS 


was $56,692.67. The Stuart Washington given by Samuel Parkman is 
an original, and not a copy, as his letter in offering the gift indicates. 
In 1898-99 the Hall was made fireproof. All wood and combustible ma- 
terial was removed and replaced by iron, steel, and stone exactly from 
plans of the original de- 
sign, though the same old 
cherry rail is still on the 
stairs and the old iron 
hinges and glass knobs are 
on thedoors. The cupola, 
with its grasshopper 
weather-vane, modeled 
from that of the Royal 
Exchange, London, and 
many times repaired, is 
reproduced in fire-proof 


material, but still in the 





old location. The ma- 
terial of the building has 
been changed, but the spirit of Faneuil Hall, hallowed Cradle of Liberty, 


INTERIOR, FANEUIL HALL 


touched by Charles Bulfinch, remains. 

No church was built from designs of Bulfinch after those at Taunton 
and Pittsfield, Massachusetts, till Holy Cross was erected in Franklin 
Place and consecrated September 29, 1803. In the following year a 
church called the ‘New North’ was erected in Hanover Street with a 
service of dedication on May 2d. Many years afterward this church 
was purchased by the Catholics and consecrated as Saint Stephen’s. 
Bulfinch’s name is thus associated with two Catholic churches, but 
with Holy Cross and the beginnings of Catholicism in Boston his 

[ 125 ] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


connection is very close and characteristic. Puritanism was not yet 
dead, but it had entered upon its period of old age; and nothing is 
more significant of the spirit of the time than the broad-minded 
attitude and action of some of Boston’s leading citizens. We should 
expect Charles Bulfinch to take a leading part in expressing the 
sentiments of brotherhood without bigotry or cant. His mind was 
expansive, tolerant. The fine human feelings in him responded to the 
need and aspirations of the Catholics, and he was quick to devote his 
artistic talent in answer to their demand for a church edifice. 

After the Revolution the Catholic population of Boston steadily 
increased from about one hundred souls with no church or place of 
worship, ministered to only on the occasional visits of missionaries, to 
the first organized society in 1790 under Father Thayer. The Reverend 
John Thayer was a former Boston Congregational minister converted 
to the Catholic faith while in Europe, ordained priest, and on his re- 
turn to America sent to the Mission in Boston in 1790 by Bishop 
Carrol, of Baltimore. Father Thayer, with the help of the Reverend 
Francis A. Matignon, sent by Bishop Carrol in 1792, continued the 
work till the coming of the Reverend John de Cheverus in 1796, when 
he was transferred to other labors. Both Father Matignon and Father 
Cheverus were exiled priests, the latter the last priest to be ordained 
before the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1790, and afterward 
commonly known and loved as Bishop Cheverus. These priests, who 
by their piety and zeal had won the hearts of the Catholics, and by 
their refined manners and genial disposition had gained the esteem of 
all the citizens, soon found the little brick church in Schoo! Street, 
formerly occupied by the French Huguenots, inadequate, and in 
March, 1799, a committee to solicit funds for land, with Don Juan 


Stoughton as chairman, gathered $3000 and a site was purchased at 
[ 126 ] 


A VARIETY OF DESIGNS 


the foot of Franklin Place just below the Crescent, diagonally opposite 
number 24, the residence of Don Juan Stoughton, Spanish Consul. 
The next step was a subscription for a building resulting in a total sum 
of $16,153, of which the Protestants subscribed $3433, John Adams, 
President of the United States, heading the list. Ground for the build- 





RESIDENCE OF DON JUAN STOUGHTON, SPANISH CONSUL 
NORTH SIDE FRANKLIN PLACE 


ing was broken March 17, 1800, and the church completed three and a 
half years later at a cost of about $20,000. The “Massachusetts 
Sentinel’ for October 1, 1803, thus describes the consecration: “On 
Thursday last the Roman Catholic Church in this town was conse- 
crated under the denomination of the Holy Cross by the Rt. Rev. Bishop 
Carrol. A little before ten o’clock the Bishop in his Pontifical dress 
with four priests, walked in procession from the residence of the Spanish 
[ 127 ] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


Consul to the church, and after the ceremonies usual to such occasions 
High Mass was celebrated by the Rev. John Cheverus, and a collection 
of $286 was made for the benefit of the Church. The church was 
extremely crowded and the Roman Catholics regret it was not in their 
power to accommodate many of those who wished to attend therein.’ 

Our knowledge of the building is derived almost wholly from the old 
photographs and the sketch by Bulfinch marked ‘Catholic.’ The 
church, built of brick, was seventy-five feet long by sixty feet wide 
and thirty feet high. The facade, in the spirit of the Italian Renais- 
sanee, with the cupola placed astride the roof and on the line of the 
front elevation, is an interesting study especially when compared with 
some of the notable churches of Italy on similar lines and which un- 
doubtedly influenced the design of Holy Cross. It may be noted that 
the entablature runs only across the front, and that if continued it 
would cut into the arches of the upper windows. According to Bul- 
finch’s memorandum the lower windows were designed to be four feet 
by seven feet and the upper, four feet by nine feet. 

The sketch of the interior shows two orders with an entablature cor- 
nice and arched ceiling. The arch is the only hint of the treatment of the 
altar end, of which there is no illustration or description. That the Cath- 
olics deeply appreciated Bulfinch’s sympathetic spirit both in furnishing 
the plan and entering so fully into its execution, is seen in the graceful 
tribute of their gift of a silver tea-urn,' said to have been valued at 
one hundred and sixty-five dollars and bearing the inscription: 


To CHARLES BULFINCH 
Esq. 
Presented by the Catholics 
of Boston 
January 1, 1806 





1 This urn is now in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. 


[ 128 ] 





HOLY CROSS CHURCH, BOSTON 


Also lower end of Tontine Buildings and spire of Federal Street Church 





SAINT STEPHEN’S CHURCH (CATHOLIC), FORMERLY THE NEW NORTH, BOSTON 


A VARIETY OF DESIGNS 
The New North Church of brick, dedicated May 2, 1804, differs 


from Holy Cross in having a projecting porch, but likewise with Holy 
Cross reflects the Italian spirit. There are evidences of freedom as well 
as of defect of line and mass and was a study of what was to be Bul- 
finch’s church masterpiece. Some years ago, when Hanover Street was 
widened, the church was moved back and an addition built in the 
rear; the photograph shows changes in the fagade made at that time, 
principally in running the steps up through the middle door opening, 
and cutting through the two side doors in the porch. The church has 
window openings similar to Holy Cross. 

From Bulfinch’s two sketches and memoranda we can form some 
idea of the interior which was seventy-two feet square with a middle 
aisle five feet wide and two side aisles four feet wide. A gallery, sup- 
ported on Doric columns with dentiled entablature, and the gallery 
breast three and a half feet high, carrying Corinthian columns from 
which a curved ceiling springs, remain to-day much as when built. 
The porch hardware including the heavy strap hinges, and the old 
stair newel posts are interesting. We can form no idea of the pulpit 
arrangement, the whole end being removed when the addition was 
built which contains the altar of Saint Stephen’s. In the language of 
the time the church ‘reflects honor upon the professional talents of 
the architect.’ This is the only church designed by Bulfinch now 
standing in Boston. ; 

Bulfinch has been credited with remodelling the meeting-house of 
the First Church of Charlestown, built in 1783, but it does not seem 
probable that he had anything to do with the steeple shown in the 
Bouvé lithograph, ‘drawn in 1799,’ published in Frothingham’s 
‘History of Charlestown,’ 1846, the design for which has been at- 
tributed to him. He was connected with the remodelling of the 

Caled 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


structure in 1804 when fifteen feet were added to each side, but the 
spire, with its beautiful Wren motive, the most truly Wren of any 
known spire in America, was then repaired and painted and un- 
doubtedly belongs to the date of the erection of the meeting-house. 
In 1834 a new church was built. 

The present spire of Christ Church, Boston, built in 1807, is from 
Bulfinch’s design, and, though sixteen feet shorter than the one 
destroyed in the gale of 1804, 
follows in general the older 
beautiful lines. 

The tradition is strong in 
Hallowell, Maine, that the cu- 
pola placed on the Old South 
Church in 1806 was designed by 
Bulfinch, and indeed on circum- 
stantial evidence would seem to 
be well founded. There is no 
record of this by Bulfinch or by 
the church, but Charles Vaughn, 
Bulfinch’s brother-in-law,  re- 


moved to Hallowell some years 





BELFRY, HALLOWELL, MAINE, 1806 before 1805 and became a mem- 
ber of the church, and it is not unlikely that, when a cupola was de- 
sired for the old church, which had been built without one in 1798, 
Bulfinch should have been asked to furnish a design. The best evidence, 
however, is in the lines of the cupola which are very close to designs 
made by him. This church was burned in 1878. 

Another tradition of a cupola by Bulfinch is found in Castine, 
Maine; but there is little else to support the claim. It is said to have 

[ 132 ] 





CHRIST CHURCH SPIRE, BOSTON 





A VARIETY OF DESIGNS 


been added to the church in the remodelling of 1831, a date much 
later:than similar designs in Maine and other parts of New England, 
notably at Augusta on the old church built in 1809, and at Belfast, 
1818, where the lines are practically the same. The Castine lines are 
beautiful, but have little in common with Bulfinch, though the design 
is a part of a very interesting problem in New England church 
architecture. 

The development of the banking and insurance business is close knit 
with Boston’s commerce and industry; but the story of Charles Bul- 
finch’s part in these two highly important enterprises can be told only 
imperfectly. We can take his list of the buildings designed by him for 
certain banks and insurance companies, we can find the date of in- 
corporation of the several institutions and where they were located in 
State Street from time to time, and we can look at one or two old, in- 
adequate pictures in the light of the assessors’ records; beyond that 
there is nothing. Bulfinch records that he designed five bank buildings 
in Boston, three of brick — the United States, the Union, and the 
Boston — and two of stone — the Massachusetts, and the Mechanics; 
but he gives no date or description, and no plans have been found. 
The first bank to continue with success was the Massachusetts, 
incorporated July 5, 1784, which at first occupied the Manufacturers’ 
House, but by 1798 was located in a three-story brick building on the 
north side of State Street, Drake says, the site of the British Coffee 
House. No trace of the Bulfinch building of stone erected for this bank 
has been found. 

The United States Branch Bank was established in 1791 and con- 
tinued as a United States bank till 1812, and after an interval of a few 
years reéstablished. One illustration is all the record we have of Bul- 
finch’s design which had a fifty-foot frontage on the south side of 

[ei35%) 


CHARLES BULFINCH 



















































































a0, 


pee gS 
S6¢ 








He PE SRE BERR RH 


Eng? ty Sihevt 














UNITED STATES BANK BUILDING, BOSTON 


From a plate (drawn by D. Raynerd) in The American Builder's Companion, by Asher Benjamin and 
Daniel Raynerd, Boston, 1806 


State Street. The 1824 building of Chelmsford granite is said to have 
been designed by Solomon Willard. 

The next bank, sometimes erroneously called the oldest Boston 
bank, was the Union, incorporated in 1792 and located in the brick 
residence of Perez Morton on the north side of State Street, which the 
bank purchased in 1799 and remodelled. This remodelled building, 
doubtless by Bulfinch, is shown in the old picture of State Street with 
‘Union Bank’ on one half of the lower story and probably continued 
to be occupied till the erection in 1826 of the granite structure now 
standing and lately vacated by the bank. 

On March 4, 1803, the Boston bank was chartered with a capitali- 
zation of $1,800,000 and was located on the north side of State Street 
in the brick building probably designed by Bulfinch, but we have no 

[ 136 ] 


Neveon hy ORSDESIGNS 


illustration or description, and none of the stone structure on the 
south side of State Street designed for the Manufacturers’ and 
Mechanics’ Bank incorporated February 18, 1814. This latter 
structure seems to have been one of the first of the many granite 
buildings erected from this time onward in State Street, but what its 
lines were we cannot determine. 

Into the interesting history of Boston insurance business we may not 
go; but must be content with observing that the peak of the maritime 
side of it was not reached till well into the nineteenth century, by 
which time the volume of fire policies was large. The oldest of the 
three insurance companies for which Bulfinch designed buildings 
was the Boston Marine, incorporated February 13, 1799, and occupy- 
ing for over ten years quarters in the Union Bank building, and some 
time after 1810 the stone structure on the north side of State 
Street, planned by Bulfinch. Of the other two buildings, one of brick 
for the Suffolk Insurance Company, incorporated February 12, 1803, 
and another of stone for the New England Marine Insurance Company 
chartered March 5, 1803, no illustration, description, or date of 
erection has been found. The latter building was located on the north 
side of State Street, and not unlikely was erected after or toward the 
close of the war, probably about the time of the erection of the stone 
building for the Manufacturers’ and Merchants’ Bank and possibly 
also that for the Massachusetts Bank. This meagre and unsatisfactory 
account of these buildings, long since removed, is all we can give; some 
of the designs may have had influence on later State Street structures, 
though some of these reflect little honor upon any designer. Some of 
the above-mentioned buildings belong to a period yet to be considered, 
but with such slight data it seemed wiser to make one connected story. 

Bulfinch’s design for the Essex Bank, Salem, Massachusetts, 1811, 

felczal 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


marks the passing of McIntire who died in that year. The building of 
brick in Flemish bond, now the home of the Salem Fraternity, is well- 
proportioned and formerly carried a well-executed portico which the 
Fraternity hopes to restore. Because of many changes to the interior, 
our interest is of necessity confined to the exterior of this good example, 
and now the only remaining illustration, of Bulfinch bank structures. 
Though business and general town improvements and building went 
forward after the embargo was lifted in 1809, it was with increased 
concern and caution. For a little while there was fresh zest, but the 
air did not clear and courage revive till the declaration of peace in 
1815. The structures erected during these years are, therefore, the 
more notable, especially those after 1812. The stone Court-House, 
Boston (1810), was erected under prosperous conditions, but Uni- 
versity Hall and the New South Church, both likewise of Chelmsford 
granite, were projected and completed amid the darkness of war. 
There is both historical and architectural interest in Boylston 
Market incorporated February 27, 1809, and erected during the year 
at the corner of Washington and Boylston Streets at a cost of $39,000. 
The land cost $20,560. The Bulfinch lines and motives may be seen 
in the illustration which shows the cupola now preserved on the 
Calvary Methodist Episcopal Church, Arlington, Massachusetts, to- 
gether with the old clock and bell. When the old market was de- 
molished in 1888, cupola, clock, and bell were purchased by Mr. A. G. 
Van Nostrand and removed to his brewery in Charlestown, and 
recently, when the church was built, presented by him to the church. 
The old market, advertised to be opened to the public November 14, 
1809, was built of brick, fifty by one hundred and twenty-five feet, three 
stories in height containing, according to Shaw’s description, twelve 


stalls for markets on the first floor, four spacious rooms on the second, 
[ 138 | 





BOYLSTON HALL AND MARKET, BOSTON, 1809 


a? 


i 





A VARIETY OF DESIGNS 


and a hall fifty by one hundred feet and twenty-four feet high on the 


floor above. This hall which had an organ was for many years after 


1817 the home of the Handel and Haydn Society. The interest in the 


building for us to-day lies in the treatment of the cupola, and the 


facade with the pilasters rising from the lower story. 


The Selectmen’s records determine the beginning of the erection of 


Park Street Church and 
throw some light on the 
angle of the porch. Though 
the Board on April 12, 
1809, had denied the re- 
quest of the proprietors 
to advance one angle of 
the porch into Common 
Street, on May 3d it was 
reported that the founda- 
tions were being laid into 
the street, whereupon the 
Board proceeded to view 
the same and forbid such 
encroachments. 

A tradition connects 
Bulfinch with a market, 
still standing, built by 


Samuel Parkman at the 





SPIRE, FEDERAL STREET CHURCH, BOSTON 


corner of Cambridge and Grove Streets in 1810. The only architectural 


feature discoverable to-day is the simple cupola set in the middle of 


the roof, which is interesting for its association if not for design. 
In the year 1809, the Federal Street Church was completed and 


[ 141 ] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


dedicated, Bulfinch’s first and only attempt at Gothic, ‘Generally 
approved,’ Madam Bulfinch wrote at the time, but chiefly interesting 


in the lines of the spire which with the window treatment are the only 





INTERIOR OF FEDERAL STREET CHURCH, BOSTON 


Gothic marks of the exterior of the structure. The building, built of 
brick, sixty-eight feet wide by something more in length, with a pitch 
roof, in its general proportions was close to the New England church of 
the period. The tower was incorporated in a projecting porch very 
similar to that at Taunton and Pittsfield. The porch lines are shown in 
an old woodcut made prior to 1850. 

At best we can speak of the interior as being Gothic only in a few 
details. These are seen in the reproduction of the old photograph and 
in the little sketch made by Bulfinch, most pronounced in the pointed 


windows and the columns. The side aisles of thirteen feet, broken by 
pie) 





AFTERWARDS THE CITY HALL 


COURT-HOUSE, BOSTON, 1810 





A VARIETY OF DESIGNS 


galleries, are not well-proportioned to the body of the church, while 
the pendentives which perform no work crudely hint the great motive 
that suggested them. The pulpit, with line and proportion of those in 
the New England meeting-house a half-century earlier, is Gothic only 
in its pointed ornament. The building is interesting as a New England 
church with a few Gothic motives added for ornamentation. Of course, 
a Gothic church was impossible under the imposed limitation, and yet 
the use here by Bulfinch of such ornamentation as we see was as much 
in harmony as many instances of Renaissance motives used for de- 
coration. Out of the ordinary the former may be, but none the less 
interesting. The lines of the spire are much truer to type than many 
spires which combine both Gothic and Renaissance motives. 

The Court-House of hammered granite, which stood on the site of 
the present Boston City Hall in School Street from 1810 to 1862, has 
more than passing interest. The design differs from any other by 
Bulfinch and has been called Italian. With an octagon middle of fifty- 
five feet and a total length of one hundred and forty feet, its propor- 
tions are those Bulfinch invariably used. Here lies its charm. We are 
fortunate in having the old photograph which illustrates the beauty and 
dignity of the building and in which we see again the use of the arched 
window recess. The lines of the front elevation of the octagon were 
reproduced closely two years later in the third Latin School building. 

There are no architectural details of the interior which contained 
two courtrooms in the centre and a smaller courtroom in one wing, 
besides rooms for judges, clerks, registry of deeds, etc. Some years 
after its erection, which cost $92,817.16, it was converted into the 
City Hall, giving way to the present structure, in 1862. 

It seems well to mention here the Court-House in East Cambridge, 
Massachusetts (1814), because it completes the list of court-houses 

[ 145 ] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


designed by Bulfinch. Forty-six by sixty-eight feet with two-foot 
brick walls, it was enlarged in 1848 and shows to-day many changes. 
The only suggestion of the original lines is found in the western 
entrance of the middle section of the present structure. No plans or 
records of changes have been found, and on the whole there is little to 
awaken interest. 

In the following year a jail was built from Bulfinch’s design, adjoin- 
ing the Court-House in East Cambridge, which was forty-five by 
ninety-five feet. No description has been found, but a sketch of the 
elevation is probably fairly correct, though not interesting. 

There is strong tradition that Bulfinch designed the old Ports- 
mouth, New Hampshire, Academy building built in 1809, and now the 





ACADEMY BUILDING, NOW PUBLIC LIBRARY, PORTSMOUTH, N.H., 1809 


Public Library; also one or more residences. The Academy building, 

with its good proportions, string-course, and pediment, is quite in 

Bulfinch’s style, with interesting doorways and a beautiful cornice, 

but no evidence has been found on the residences. | 
[ 146 ] 


CHAPTER VII 
RESIDENCES BEFORE THE WAR 

r NHE question of Bulfinch single residences is almost as obscure 

as it is interesting, particularly because not one of them was 
recorded by him. The circumstantial evidence is strong for some, and 
upon this and the motives found in Franklin Place, Park Place, and 
Colonnade Row, known Bulfinch examples based upon documentary 
evidence, judgment can be formed in cases where the executed de- 
sign constitutes the only basis. 

Besides the better-known and authenticated examples is the swell- 
front type with an oval room, the first of which is the Joseph Barrell 
mansion in Charlestown (now Somerville), and possibly first in point 
of time of all the Bulfinch residences. Barrell, in a letter of December, 
1792, speaks of moving to ‘Pleasant Hill’ in the following spring, from 
which we may infer that the house was begun not later than the early 
part of that year and quite likely in the preceding year. 

That Bulfinch was the designer seems practically sure, first, because 
he was almost the only one to whom Barrell could have turned, as well 
as the one from whom most naturally he would have sought advice in 
such need; second, because this style of design interested Bulfinch as 
we know from books in his possession, an interest not unlikely quick- 
ened by seeing examples of it in England. A careful study of all the 
material bearing on the question justifies the conclusion that Bul- 
finch introduced the style in New England and here in the Barrell 
Mansion. 

Barrell was one of Boston’s wealthy merchants, in whose counting- 
room Bulfinch was employed for a time after leaving college, and who, 

[ 147 ] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


as we have seen, was the prime mover in the Columbia venture; and it 
was his ambition to create a large and beautiful country estate to 
which it was his evident intention to remove permanently from his 
Summer Street home. This Summer Street estate, embracing con- 
siderable land, Barrell sold in May, 1793, to Charles Vaughn, the 
brother-in-law of Bulfinch, and part of the land was used in the creation 


of Franklin Place. 

















BARRELL MANSION, FROM AN OLD SKETCH 


On the brow of the hill, in an extensive tract of land he had acquired, 
later the site of McLean Hospital, Barrell set his mansion. The re- 
production of the old sketch illustrates the house seen from the east 
as it faced the garden and the Charles River. On the west a porch with 
four Ionic columns formed the main entrance reached by the drive 


bordered with elms. The building, of which no plan has been found, 
[ 148 ] 


RESIDENCES BEFORE THE WAR 


was forty-two by seventy-four feet and built of brick. Here we have 
the first illustration of a Bulfinch residence, and of the swell-front type 
entirely different from the majority of his known residences. The 
grounds Barrell planted to trees, importing choice plants from Europe 
and gardeners to care for them; made fountains for goldfish and placed 
trout in the waters. His stable contained fine horses; at the river a 
barge with liveried boat- 
men waited to convey 
him or his guests to Bos- 
ton, thus saving the long 
drive via Charlestown 
Bridge. 

Fortunately, we are 
not confined to descrip- 
tions of the interior. 
Something of the beauty 
of the hall and staircase 
and the oval drawing- 
room comes to us in the 
old photographs. The hall 


contained a stairease in- 





teresting for its beauty 


HALL, BARRELL MANSION 


and construction. It has 
been called a ‘flying’ staircase and was supported by four fluted columns 
under the first landing forming an arch opposite the entrance. From 
this landing three steps led to another landing and from thence diverg- 
ing right and left up to a hall connecting with each wing. The drawing- 
room located in the swell-front toward the garden and the river, and 
extending back to the hall, had a coved ceiling with a beautiful cornice. 
[ 149 ] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 





DRAWING-ROOM, BARRELL MANSION 


The finish material of the drawing-room and hall was removed when 
the building was demolished some years ago on the removal of the 
hospital to Waverley, and is now incorporated in a house in Way- 
land. At that time the masonry and timbers were found sound. The 
floors were deadened by a layer of brick, and back of the base-boards 
and in all unused spaces brick were laid in mortar for fire, and possibly 
rat, stops. All the inner walls not built of brick were built of two-inch 
pine plank set upright and lathed and plastered. An interesting de- 
scription by the Reverend Edward G. Porter, of the house and 
grounds, was given at a meeting of the Massachusetts Historical 
Society at the time the house was being demolished. 

Here Barrell lived till his death on October 13, 1804, and was buried 

LL502) 


RESIDENCES BEFORE THE WAR 


at night at his request in the family vault in King’s Chapel —a 
singular desire for one whose life had been so full of enterprise and 
beauty, though doubtless resulting from the material reverses in the 
closing years. Born in 1740, the Copley portrait about thirty years 
later reveals one of the strong motives of his life, the love of luxury, 
which dominated to the end. 

The next house of this type in point of time, and of unusual interest, 

was built by General Henry Knox, a man whose whole life in integrity 
of moral and spiritual character is an inspiration — the boyhood of 
privation, toil, and self-education; the manhood of applied ability, 
daring, and leadership in his country’s service. Born in Boston, where 
he was married in 1774 to Lucy, daughter of Thomas Flucker, the 
Royal Secretary of the Province, he escaped with her through the 
enemy’s lines at night, rendered a service in the Revolution out of all 
proportion to credit given him, and resigning his post as Secretary of 
War he removed to Thomaston in the Province of Maine, occupying 
the house in the summer of 1795. 

This house, which was begun in 1793, was occupied by General 
Knox till his death in 1806 and was demolished about 1870. In con- 
nection with its erection, Knox mentioned ‘Messrs Simpson and 
Hersey, and Messrs Dunton and Cushing,’ one or more of whom were 
probably Boston builders. Indeed, the Boston source of the design 
seems obvious, though Knox through his association with Jefferson 
may have drawn direct from English designs. In any case the exe- 
cution furnishes an example of this type, and is suggestive in general 
line of the Barrell mansion. Like the latter, the site commanded a 
broad view of a river and the approach was through a double gate with 
carved eagles on the posts. The mansion was flanked by nine other 


buildings in the form of a crescent. 
ie lol 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


The residence is described as fifty-six by forty-eight feet, facing 
south, with the General’s reception-room in the bow, ‘twenty feet long 
and sixteen across,’ finished with four doors and two fireplaces. Back 
of this room was a large hall in the middle of the house out of which 
stairs ascended on two sides to a square landing at the rear from 
which one flight rose to the second floor with galleries on the sides 
giving on the rooms there. At one time the house contained a Copley 
portrait of Thomas Flucker and another of Knox by Stuart. The railed 
veranda across the front of the mansion is not shown in the old paint- 
ing published in 1900.' It is to be hoped that the proposed repro- 
duction of the house may be accomplished, both for its historical and 
architectural value. No evidence has been found to connect Bulfinch 
with this design, except that bearing on this type of house, which he 
introduced. 

Another of these houses was built by Jonathan Mason and occupied 
by him October 20, 1802, being probably the second house erected on 
the Copley land after its purchase in 1795. The first house was that 
built by Harrison Gray Otis at what is now 85 Mount Vernon Street 
and occupied by him not later than 1801. A letter among the Otis 
papers determines the date of sale of his first house in Cambridge 
Street as a little prior to January 25, 1801. Mason and Otis were 
prominent lawyers, associated in many enterprises, including the 
Copley purchase which they shared with Benjamin Joy and the 
trustee for Mrs. Hepsibah Swan, Henry Jackson. Mason continued to 
occupy the house till his death in 1831, and in 1839 it was demolished. 
Our knowledge of the house, which stood at the head of Walnut Street 
looking down across the Common, is limited to the Pendleton litho- 
graph. The notable features are in the front elevation, with its pilasters, 

i Henry Knor. by Noal brooke a GAs Eitan cane er 

[ 152] 


RESIDENCES BEFORE THE WAR 























JONATHAN MASON MANSION 


ornamental blocks, and low-down windows, the upper ones with small 
balconies. The close association of Bulfinch with both Mason and 
Otis, if there was no other evidence, would leave little doubt that he 
designed this house for Mason. 

Direct evidence of the association of Bulfinch with Mason and Otis 
and with the Copley purchase rests on his deposition November 14, 
1836,! that in 1794 he was interested in a parcel of land extending from 
Beacon Street, north, and from Belknap Street, west. The agreement 
between Samuel Cabot, John Singleton Copley’s agent and attorney, 

1 Suffolk Deeds, Book 387, f. 257 and fol. 

[lose 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


and Mason, Otis, Bulfinch, Joseph Woodward, and William Scollay, 
dated June 17, 1795, was signed by all except Woodward. In the deed 
executed in the following February, Mason and Otis only are named, 
‘for themselves and in trust for the other proprietors,’ according to the 
testimony in Bulfinch’s deposition. Actual ownership by Bulfinch in 
any of the Copley land does not appear, but in March, 1796, William 
Scollay and Charles Bulfinch released to Mason and Otis title to 
certain lots in the Zachariah Phillips pasture which extended north 
of the Copley land. 

Further evidence that this was a part of a general land scheme on 
Beacon Hill is found in a plan made by Bulfinch for a street lay-out of 
this area including a large park. The failure of the project as set forth 
in the plan was due largely to the unsettled condition of business 
which came almost to a standstill with the embargo of 1807. The al- 
most complete withdrawal of Bulfinch from this land scheme dates 
from January, 1796, at the time of the collapse of the Franklin Place 
venture. The more complete story of the Copley purchase may be 
found in the admirable researches of Allen Chamberlain in his ‘ Beacon 
Mill: Its Ancient Pastures and Early Mansions’ (Houghton Mifflin 
Company, Boston, 1925). 

It is of interest to compare the Mason house, with its single swell, 
with the Thurston house, which stood just back of the Monument on 
Beacon Hill, having a double swell, and probably erected a little later 
than the former structure. Nothing has been found to connect Bul- 
finch with the Thurston house, but this unusual double swell, repeated 
once at least, is of interest. 

Another example of this type is Fay House, the administration 
building of Radcliffe College, Cambridge, of more than usual interest 


because it has two swells or bays, one in the middle and the other at 
[ 154 ] 


RESIDENCES BEFORE THE WAR 


the end of the house. Said to have been built in 1802 and at one time 
the residence of Edward Everett, it had been much enlarged and 
changed before the College bought it in 1885. The original lines can 
be determined, but that the third floor belongs to 1802 is not clear. It 
is notable that the roof has modern framing, and that the belt course 
at the top of the second story is corbelled. Built of brick and now 


painted, it is difficult to determine when the first coat was applied. 





FAY HOUSE, CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS 


The front door leads through the bay into what may have been an 
elliptical hall, on the left of which is an oval room approximately 
twenty by twenty-eight feet, and eleven feet high, with a simple 
stueco cornice, embrasured windows, and a thirty-four-inch dado. 
Above this on the second floor is another oval room with plainer finish, 
and opposite these oval rooms are two nearly square rooms with in- 
teresting mantels and mouldings. There is nothing else to determine 
the original finish of the house. The exterior, with its unusually placed 
swells, and the oval rooms constitute the chief architectural features. 

le ooe | 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


There is a Bulfinch tradition, but as yet no evidence. His influence, 
however, is unmistakable. 

A full list of houses with an oval room or swell front, whether 
attributable to Bulfinch direct or not, would be of considerable length 
and of much interest. The country house at Dorchester, Massachu- 
setts, of Mrs. James or Hepsibah Swan had a circular drawing-room, 
described as being ‘thirty-two feet in diameter,’ with a ‘dome-shaped 
ceiling,’ in a projecting swell front and may with safety be ascribed to 
Bulfinch. Oakley, the country house of Otis, built about 1808 also had 
an oval room. Both of these houses have been removed. The Morton 
house, Roxbury, dating about the year 1796, had an oval room and 
can be assigned to Bulfinch, though the facade motives are less 
suggestive of him than those of the Crafts house, Roxbury (1805), 
attributed to Peter Banner.! 

Another house of this type with an unconfirmed Bulfinch tradition 
is the Governor Gore mansion at Waltham, Massachusetts, built prob- 
ably after Gore’s return from London in 1804, and certainly after 1799 
when the former house was destroyed by fire. It may be probable, as 
another tradition states, that Gore brought the plans from England, 
but there is no internal evidence that any of the material came from 
there, which is included in the tradition. A design very close to that 
executed at Waltham is in the ‘Original Designs in Architecture,’ by 
W. Thomas (London, 1783), and a copy of this book, much used, was 
in the possession of Bulfinch; but no evidence has been found that this 
or a similar design came direct from London or through Bulfinch. 

The outstanding features of the interior are the beautiful mantels 
quite in the spirit of McIntire as we see it at Salem, Massachusetts, 
and the oval room twenty by thirty feet, in the middle of the house 


1 See Fiske Kimball, American Domestic Architecture, pp. 197, 198. 
(erooa] 


RESIDENCES BEFORE THE WAR 


immediately back of the semi-oval reception-room lying between the 
two halls on the north. The oval room was substantially repeated on 
the second floor with a dentiled mantel like that in the room below. 


But the general finish is surprisingly plain, failing to satisfy the 










th ue 4) €. Ca vrbirch abr L798. fo Gifley Aide 

a Teo ite, fetal.) freccteby Pron maak 4 
orgs H & Of calc The rich Mac tse oly Che taee 
Stat - 





















Us 


FIRST HARRISON GRAY OTIS HOUSE, 1796 


elaborate plan or to harmonize with the finely wrought mantels, and 
especially noticeable in the general lack of cornices, in the extreme 
simplicity of the low dados, and the spiral staircase. The mansion 
constitutes a rare and valuable example of this type of architecture 
and is deserving of careful restoration and preservation. 

The Commandant’s house at the Charlestown Navy Yard belongs 
to this type of residences and by tradition has been attributed to 
Bulfinch, but the only evidence to connect it with him lies in the 

else 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


double swell looking toward the water which constitutes the chief 
interest so far as Bulfinch or the period is concerned. Begun probably 
in 1809 by Captain Samuel Nickerson, then Commandant, successive 
changes have removed nearly all original marks, including the cornice 
and the interior finish. The curved lines, never good, are now obscured 
by an outer brick shell giving the building on this elevation the 


appearance of having round corners. 




















ORIGINAL CORNICE, FIRST OTIS HOUSE 


Besides these houses with swell fronts or oval rooms which we have 
considered, there is the third Otis mansion, to be noticed later, which 
has an oval room, and the house built by Benjamin Joy in Chest- 
nut Street in 1802. No example of this style has been found dating 
later than 1810, and few outside of Boston and vicinity except the 
General Knox mansion. The material used in the construction of all 


the houses of this type was brick. 
[ 158 J 


RESIDENCES BEFORE THE WAR 


The first house built by Harrison Gray Otis, at the corner of Cam- 
bridge and Lynde Streets, was not in existence when the assessors 
reported about the first of June, 1796, but was occupied by him before 
the following June and is assessed as a ‘large new house.’ Naturally 
we should expect that Otis would have turned to Bulfinch for a design, 
and there is a small sketch in one of Bulfinch’s books of a front 
elevation very close to what we find in the house to-day, now the 
headquarters of the So- 
ciety for the Preserva- 
tion of New England 
Antiquities. There also 
is another very similar 
sketch in color found 
in the Otis Papers, and 
according to the inscrip- 
tion assigning 1796 as the 
date. In comparing the 
sketches with the house 
as built and as it is to- 


day, we note the absence 





of the ornamental tablets 


LOWER HALL, FIRST OTIS HOUSE 


designed to be set above 
the second-story windows, relieving the unfilled space, which, with 
the high line of the upper string-course, is a noticeable defect. The 
present brick cornice is not the original one, which was of wood, still 
in existence on the west end and a well-executed design. The present 
Palladian and bow windows are reproductions. From the evidence 
in the sketches the porch was not a part of the original design, 
though possibly added. It is interesting to note in both sketches 
[ 159-] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


the treatment of the second story windows with their small balconies. 
The facade suggests the possible influence of the Bingham house, 
Philadelphia, which interested Bulfinch during his visit there in 1789. 

The interior is delightful, particularly on the first and second floors, 
but that all the design and finish can be assigned to 1796 or to Bul- 
finch, it is impossible to 
say. The most notable 
rooms are the entrance 
hall with its beautiful 
staircase, the dining-room 
at the left, the drawing- 
room above it, now 
largely reproduced and of 
much interest, the upper 
hall with two Palladian 
windows, and the two 
very interesting rooms 
furnished by the Colonial 
Dames. The outstanding 
architectural feature in 


the southeast room is the 





fine cornice which we ac- 


UPPER HALL, FIRST OTIS HOUSE 


claim at once as in har- 
mony with the other finish belonging to the 1796 period. The house 
throughout has low dados, embrasured windows, and some mouldings 
belonging to the first period of the house. Here, too, are stucco cor- 
nices and marble mantels which not so surely belong to 1796. There 
are many touches indicating the Adam influence, which, if belonging 
to 1796, make the house one of the first examples of that style of finish. 

[ 160 ] 


= Nine a aa 


jean Spr 


UY Sienencetoanniaensitienieeiens acer 





FIRST OTIS HOUSE 


ROOM MANTEL, 


DINING 





RESIDENCES BEFORE THE WAR 


The third floor, planned for sleeping-rooms, furnishes an interesting 
example of simple interior with its distinctive charm. The house, 
which had been greatly changed and mutilated, was restored at con- 
siderable cost, after careful study of the question involved, by the 
Society for which it fur- 
nishes a fitting home. 
The second house built 
by Otis in 1800 and oc- 
cupied by him in 1801, 
known now as 85 Mount 
Vernon Street, is unques- 
tionably a Bulfinch de- 
sign. Both tradition and 
the Bulfinch character- 
istics are strong. The 
proportions, the pilasters, 
the arched recess around 
the window openings are 
just what we find on the 
north side of Franklin 


Place; and the house is a 





fine example of that type 


CORNER OF COLONIAL DAMES ROOM 
of Bulfinch residence. The FIRST OTIS HOUSE 


main entrance formerly Showing cornice 

at the west has been removed and part of the old hall incorporated 
with a projecting addition to form a dining-room; but that part of 
the old hall containing the beautiful staircase remains. The finely 
carved marble mantels in the parlors are not original; but the 
finish in both these rooms doubtless is, including the door and 


[ 163 |] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


window mouldings with reed motives and the interesting dado top 
finish. The windows have embrasured shutters with finish mouldings 
slightly varying from the door mouldings. It is interesting to com- 
pare the southwest parlor cornice, plain, well-proportioned, and 
probably original, with the southeast room cornice of stucco, much 
more elaborate but with poorer lines and lacking projection. This 
comparison bears upon the problem of stucco work in general and in 
particular upon the question of date of finish now seen in the first 
Otis house, Cambridge and Lynde Streets. The second-floor cornices 
are simple and in harmony with that in the southwest parlor. We 
need more definite facts concerning stucco work and its development 
in Boston and New England, as we do of the early use of marble 
mantels. There are opinions on both subjects, but the evidence before 
us is scant. A feature of the staircase is the delicately carved acanthus 
newel around which wind the well-wrought slender balusters. On the 
whole the house to-day is a splendid example of this type of Bulfinch 
design and of careful, skilled workmanship. All the lines are well- 
balanced and the ornamentation beautifies without obtruding. 

A few years later Otis built a third house at what is now 45 Beacon 
Street which he continued to occupy from 1806 till his death. Before 
that event the beautiful gardens at the east were given over to dwell- 
ings and the old setting for a well-shaped house was lost. Into this 
garden projected a bow, suggestive of the Barrell mansion, though on 
different ground plan, and was a mark of the continued taste for an 
oval room. There is much in the front elevation in common with a 
double house on Mount Vernon Street of about the same date and 
designed by Bulfinch. The present stone facing is not original, but 
doubtless there were arched window recesses like those found in the 
ell and in the double house just mentioned. So, too, features common 

[ 164 ] 





SECOND HARRISON GRAY OTIS HOUSE, 1800 


Now 85 Mount Vernon Street 





THIRD HARRISON GRAY OTIS HOUSE, 1805-06 


Now 45 Beacon Street 


RESIDENCES BEFORE THE WAR 


to both structures are the low-down second-story windows with small 
iron balconies, found in Park Street, to be described later. 

Of the interior little can be said because of the almost complete 
change, particularly on the first and second floors. The oval room on 
the second floor now projecting into the adjacent house remains, but 
the staircase and much of the finish material are gone. It is only on 
the third and fourth floors with mantels and mouldings of the period 
that something of the original spirit of the interior is felt, suggestive 
of the finer treatment of the floors below; but little else to help re- 
create the residence for over forty years of its celebrated occupant. 

It is interesting to find in the Otis Papers that the first house was 
sold for $18,400 and the second for $22,984, possession of the latter to 
be given June 1, 1806. 

These three Otis residences, each one called by Otis his ‘mansion 
house,’ have been considered together because of their association and 
because they furnish examples of nearly all Bulfinch motives found in 
known designs of residences by him, such as the use of pilasters and 
the good proportions in Franklin Place, the arched window recess in 
Franklin Place and ten years later in Park Place, and the low-down 
window used in both Park Place and Colonnade Row. One or more of 
these motives appear in the bulk of the residences built between 1800 
and 1810, and with family tradition, not to have undue weight, help to 
determine the probability of Bulfinch influence during this and the 
following period. In no case, be it noted, is there any evidence derived 
from Bulfinch records bearing on single residences. Moreover, it 
should be borne in mind that Bulfinch had few or no competitors till 
toward the close of the decade, especially in Boston. McIntire’s work 
was confined almost wholly to Salem, while the influence of Asher 
Benjamin and Solomon Willard, who arrived in Boston in the opening 

[ 167 ] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


years of the century, is not marked. Hence the obvious inference 
concerning Bulfinch during this period, and especially up to 1805 or 
1806. 

Information of Benjamin is as yet very incomplete. His residence 
in Boston can be established from 1803 till 1845, the year of his death, 
and his numerous books on architecture in various editions were 
published during the years from 1797 to 1851. The number of designs 
in these books is relatively small, some drawn directly from Bulfinch 
and others poor adaptations. For the most part they are builders’ 
guides, containing rules for the working of the ‘orders.’ The evidence 
in hand points to a strong influence by Bulfinch on designs by Ben- 
jamin, but the facts are not sufficient to warrant a conclusion. 

There is no evidence to connect Solomon Willard, who arrived in 
Boston at the age of twenty-one, probably in 1804, with any design till 
after 1815; nor that Peter Banner made any design prior to that for 
Park Street Church which was begun in 1809. Though Banner has 
been credited with the design of the Crafts house, Roxbury (1805), 
no other evidence of him has been found at this time. Not only was 
Bulfinch well known, but up to 1805 he stood alone in architecture, 
and so far as houses are concerned without practical competition tll 
the period of the war. 

We emerge from the region of tradition and probability into the 
light of certainty when we consider the four connected houses which 
were completed in Park Street in 1805. Of these we have a front 
elevation and floor plans by Bulfinch, now preserved at the Mas- 
sachusetts Historical Society, and a photograph here reproduced of 
the last remaining building, 4 Park Street, for many years occupied 
by Houghton Mifflin Company. There is little illustration of the 
former interior, almost the only indication being in the two upper 

[ 168 ] 





4 PARK STREET 


NO. 





PARK STREET AND THE STATE HOUSE, ABOUT 1870 


RESIDENCES BEFORE THE WAR 


3 


Gs) eae) 2 


@ 
gee, 


a 
* 
a 

















ELEVATION, 1-4 PARK STREET 


From original by Bulfinch 


floors at number 4, where the finish found is very plain. The copy of 
the old photograph indicates the former beauty and simplicity of the 
exterior and by comparing with the recent photograph we may note 
the few changes made. 

The impressive mark in these buildings is the arched recess which 
is found on four groups of dwellings built almost immediately after 
Park Street. The first group is composed of *7 new houses’ first taxed 
by the assessors in 1806 for $35,000, and built by William Clapp on the 
north side of Bulfinch Place. These were sold from 1806 to 1809, the 
one on the corner of Bulfinch Street to Jonathan Howard in 1807, of 
which an old photograph furnishes our only knowledge of the char- 
acter of the buildings. It seems most likely, because of association, 

Cue 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


that Clapp should have employed Bulfinch to furnish the design 
which, following closely Park Street, shows the same general lines 
including the characteristic arched recess. 

Opposite these seven houses, on the south side, stands a house that 
has been connected persistently, in the family and other tradition, as 
the house built by Bulfinch, and occupied by him from about 1800 to 
to 1815. A certain diary record reads, ‘I was born... at 8 Bulfinch 
Place in the house built by Bulfinch of whom my father bought it.’ 
This house is utterly altered both by the addition of upper stories and 
by interior changes that leave no mark of any former beauty. That 
Bulfinch designed the building is most likely, not only because of his 
association with Clapp, but from the evidence found in the structure; 
but there is not the slightest evidence that he ever occupied it as a 
dwelling. The house in Middlecot Street which he occupied up to 1796, 
and probably since his removal from Marlborough Street in 1791, 
became the residence of William Clapp, and, together with a con- 
siderable tract of land, was deeded to him in 1797. In that year Clapp 
cut through a thirty-foot street now called Bulfinch Place, which does 
not appear on Osgood Carleton’s 1805 map, and subsequently erected 
the seven houses already described. To carry this out, Clapp borrowed 
thirty thousand dollars and executed a mortgage deed June 17, 1805, 
which makes no mention of Bulfinch Place or any building thereon; 
but in another deed, October 13, 1806, he specifies ‘a certain brick 
dwelling-house now improved by myself situated in Bulfinch Place.’ 
Clapp’s widow conveyed this house to Henry Rice in 1811, who 
evidently occupied it till his conveyance of the property in 1841. 

The Bulfinch family, after the few years with the Storers in South- 
ack’s Court, occupied a small house in Middlecot Street, taxed in 1800 
for five hundred dollars and ‘a decent house’ in Southack’s Court 

[ 172 ] 





HOWARD HOUSE, BULFINCH PLACE, 1806 


From an old photograph 





RESIDENCES BEFORE THE WAR 


assessed for $1000 the next year. In 1802, we find Bulfinch assessed in 
Bulfinch Street, thus confirming the Boston Directory which gives 
Bulfinch Street as the residence as late as 1813; but comparison of the 
deeds shows that the Southack’s Court and Bulfinch Street property 
was the same and lying near or upon Bulfinch Street. The period of 
occupancy of this house is that generally assigned to 8 Bulfinch Place. 

These are clear facts obtained at a cost of considerable research, not- 
withstanding the seeming good testimony from the old diary which 
belonged to a daughter of Henry Rice. It is only fair to say that this 
daughter was born in 1833 and lived at 8 Bulfinch Place only as a 
mere girl, and therefore should be excused for misinformation which 
nevertheless occasioned much labor. 

Additional evidence on the residence of Bulfinch in Bulfinch Stree¢ 
is found in some old papers which have come to light recently in a 
rather remarkable way. In the spring of 1925, a gentleman called on 
Captain William B. Clarke at the rooms of the Bostonian Society and 
offered him a very small, old trunk which he had rescued from de- 
struction. Because this could not be accepted by the Society, as there 
was no evidence connecting it with Boston, it was given to Captain 
Clarke. On opening it at his home, papers were found which had be- 
longed to Captain Clarke’s great-grandmother, Lucy Watson, and 
related also to Charles Bulfinch. Among these papers are lease agree- 
ments which prove that Bulfinch resided in Bulfinch Street in 1810-13, 
in a house owned by the above-mentioned Lucy Watson, and that the 
rent paid was two hundred and fifty dollars per annum. The earliest 
dated of these agreements indicates that the rental had been running 
previous to the date of the paper. Thus the conclusion already stated 
from other evidence is doubly confirmed. 

The records seem to warrant assigning the erection of 8 Bulfinch 

le bres 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


Place to the years 1805-06, about the same time as the seven houses 
on the north side of the street. Though practically everything in the 
interior is gone beyond recall, including what has been described as a 
‘beautiful ball-room and a royal staircase,’ the exterior presents in- 
teresting details. Marks of the original design are found in the arched 
recesses, the ornamental blocks, and in parts at least of the window 
headers, but the continuation of the first-story cornice from the porch 
was a later addition. Above the arches may be seen vertical lines on the 
brick extending up to the termination of the Flemish bond suggesting 
pilasters and an entablature, of which the present cornice is a part, 
sunilar in treatment to that at 85 Mount Vernon Street. It would seem 
that the lines and ornamentation of the porch have been changed but 
little. Though the house lacked a good setting, the Bulfinch mark of 
good proportions is evident. 

Bowdoin Square was reproduced in illustration by the Bostonian 
Society in 1922 from old pictures of houses formerly there, showing, 
besides the Bulfinch and the Chardon houses, the Samuel Parkman 
house built probably about 1789, possibly with some Bulfinch influence, 
the Blake-Tuckerman house, to be considered later, the Scripps-Booth 
house, and the Armstrong house on Bulfinch Street. The latter had 
strong Bulfinch characteristics, notably in the pilaster motive as found 
on the north side of Franklin Place, and helps us to understand the 
original front of number 8 Bulfinch Place. 

Practically at the same time of the Bulfinch Place buildings a 
double house was built just below the second Harrison Gray Otis 
house on Mount Vernon Street half of which remains to give an 
example. Bulfinch was connected with the erection of these houses, 
which stood, as the remaining one does now, upon a curved drive, 
deeding the eastern one to Stephen Higginson, Jr., and the other to 

[ 176 ] 





HOUSE OF STEPHEN HIGGINSON, JR., NO. 87 MOUNT VERNON STREET 
BOSTON, 1806 





BOSTON 


? 


55 (RIGHT) AND 57 MOUNT VERNON STREET 


NOS 


RESIDENCES BEFORE THE WAR 


David Humphreys in 1806, both incomplete. Built at the same time 
as the third Otis house, 45 Beacon Street, their front elevations have 
much in common, the only essential difference being in the better 
cornice at Mount Vernon Street. 

Following this double house four connected houses were erected by 
Jonathan Mason just east of his mansion, which probably were not 
finished before 1807. Three of these are still standing, two with the 
original and unchanged beautiful cornice. The first and second of 
these faced west, the present front door of the former being a part 
of a later addition containing a hall which connects with the old 
hall. The second, 55 Mount Vernon Street, preserves very closely 
the original finish, which, while plain, has good mantels and original 
stone fireplaces and a general uniformity and charm throughout. The 
small porch at the front door is a later addition. The arrangement 
of staircases and rooms in both these houses seems to have been the 
same, but the third, which with the fourth house had the door at the 
south, has a different floor plan, the hall lying west of the other rooms, 
with a very interesting spiral staircase running from the second floor 
at the rear lit by a round roof window. The front staircase, now gone, 
ascended from the first to the third floors in the form of an ellipse and 
lit by a window in the roof. 

The last group of residences of this period and type at 13, 15, and 17 
Chestnut Street probably was begun and finished at about the same 
time as the four houses built by Mason, though with a finer interior 
which with few changes is exceptionally well-preserved. The finish of 
all three houses is almost the same — door and window trim identical 
with the trim at 55 Mount Vernon Street, thirty-inch dados, fireplaces 
and mantels on good lines, and graceful staircases winding in an 
ellipse and lit by an oval skylight. In each house the marble mantels 

[ 179 ] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


in the double parlors on the second floor are doubtless early, but 
evidence is lacking to assign them to the period when the houses were 
finished or before 1810. These mantels are of the same design, differ- 
ing only in color, one half being black and one half white, placed, it 
would seem, according to family taste, as we find two white mantels 
at number 13, two black 
at number 15, and one 
black and one white at 
number 17. These resi- 
dences were built for her 
three daughters by Mrs. 
Hepsibah Swan, wife of 
James Swan, who had 
amassed a fortune in 
France, becoming at last ~ 
involved and imprisoned 
on charge of debt. At 
the time of the French 
Revolution, Mr. Swan 
had purchased and sent 
home a_ considerable 


quantity of household 





furnishings which 


LOWER HALL, 13 CHESTNUT STREET, BOSTON 


adorned Mrs. Swan’s 
winter home and her summer home in Dorchester. A granddaughter 
has given an interesting account of Mrs. Swan’s reception to 
Lafayette at the country house. Here, in the oval drawing-room with 
its three windows giving on the piazza, so like a French salon, and 


furnished with purchases from the Tuileries which Mr. Swan had sent 
[ 180 ] 





BOSTON 


HALLWAY OF NO. 55 MOUNT VERNON STREET, 


eae 





HESTNUT STREET, BOSTON 


C 


AND 17 


’ 


15 


> 


13 


RESIDENCES BEFORE THE WAR 


home, Mrs. Swan entertained her distinguished guest whom she had 
known in her younger years. This granddaughter also has told how 
from their Chestnut Street home Copley’s small wooden house on 


Beacon Street was plainly to be seen, where that noted artist had 


rie 





painted many of his portraits 
before his departure for England 
in 1774. 

Number 17 is of especial in- 
terest for its direct and continued 
association with Mrs. Swan, its 
atmosphere of the past and the 
largely unchanged original finish. 
It is now owned by Miss Eliza- 
beth Bartol, a  great-grand- 
daughter of Mrs. Swan, and 
contains much of the beautiful 
furnishings sent over by Mr. 
Swan. Over the mantel in the BEDROOM MANTEL, 15 CHESTNUT STREET 
front parlor hangs the portrait of Mrs. Howard, Mrs. Swan’s daughter 
who first lived here, at the right is the portrait of Mr. Swan and at the 
left one of Mrs. Swan, all by Stuart; on the mantel the French clock and 
candelabra and in the fireplace the gilt fire-goats (not dogs). The great 
city shrinks, and again the past returns with its romance and reality. 

A feature in nearly all of the houses of this period is the cornice, the 
most notable found at 55 and 57 and 85 and 87 Mount Vernon Street. 
It should be noted how closely the four groups of houses just discussed 
follow Park Street both in date and in general plan, in all the same 
proportions and the arched window recess in the first story, and the 
low-down windows in Park Street and at 87 Mount Vernon Street. 

else 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


Two other notable houses of this period should be mentioned, that 
built by Thomas Amory about 1804 (later called the Ticknor house), 
and the John Phillips residence now numbered 1 Walnut Street, 
erected in 1805 by the man who in 1822 became Boston’s first mayor. 
Both houses remain, though much changed, but though there is no 
evidence to connect Bulfinch with the Phillips house, the marks on the 


other are unmistakable. This latter is larger and more elaborate, 





PARK STREET, SHOWING AMORY HOUSE ON THE CORNER 


answering to Amory’s ambition, and had the arched window recesses 
and the low-down windows with balconies which we have just noticed. 
Amory suffered reverses, the news arriving just as he was preparing to 
receive guests in his new house, whom he welcomed to the house- 
warming knowing that on the morrow they and others would know 
that he was bankrupt. a 

The Thomas Perkins house at the corner of Joy and Mount Vernon 


Streets belongs to this early period and is of considerable interest. 
[ 184 ] 





INTERIOR, 15 CHESTNUT STREET, BOSTON 








errant BEN os, 


snnatcone teens 





NO. 17 CHESTNUT STREET, BOSTON 


RESIDENCES BEFORE THE WAR 


How directly it is due to Bulfinch influence is not clear. It had the 


arched window recess in the first floor of the front elevation, but the 


proportions are not so good as usually are found in his designs. Built 


in the years 1804 and 1805 and occupied in 1806, the beautiful marble 


mantels carved in Italy 
were not received till Jan- 
uary, 1806. These man- 
tels are still in existence 
on Beacon Hill, being re- 
moved from the house 
when it was demolished 
in 1853, and are rare ex- 
amples of this style and 
date in Boston. 

Mention is made of the 
double house at 54-55 
Beacon Street because of 
its colonnaded balcony 
on lines found in ‘Colon- 
nade Row.’ The date of 
erection falls between the 
dates of two conveyances, 
that of the land on De- 





THOMAS PERKINS HOUSE, CORNER OF MOUNT 
VERNON AND JOY STREETS, 1804-05 


From an old photograph 


cember 10, 1806, and of the eastern half of the house on November 9, 
1808. The swell front and the balcony design suggest Bulfinch, but the 


treatment of the pilasters is not good, particularly the awkward 


handling of the entablature block in contrast with the truer lines at 
85 Mount Vernon Street and in the houses on the north side of Franklin 
Place. The building should be compared with numbers 39 and 40 


[ 187 ] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


Beacon Street which Bulfinch did not design, and with Colonnade 
Row which he did. An almost identical residence in Summer Street 
is illustrated in the ‘New England Magazine’ for November, 1898, 
the residence at one time of Edward Everett. 

Colonnade Row, a series of nineteen dwellings, not twenty-four as 
sometimes stated, extended from West Street to Mason Street on land 
formerly included in the Common and conveyed by the town in 1795. 
By November 15, 1809, this land was owned by David Greenough and 
others, and a conveyance of one of the houses is recorded June 17, 
1811. Comparison of a lithograph published in 1843 with the copy of 
the old 1855 photograph shows how unreliable old cuts may be in 
details, particularly here in failing to show the balanced proportions, a 
strong Bulfinch characteristic. The Doric colonnade with the delicate 
balconies had charm, and, varying both in width and door treatment, 
the block had harmony without monotony. Well-set, facing the 
Common, catching the cool breezes of summer across the Charles, 
this group of dwellings is one of the most interesting of Bulfinch 
designs. The treatment of the cornice, simple and good, has dis- 
appeared and the interiors of the few remaining houses have been 
utterly changed. In the rear were gardens and stables which helped to 
make these residences among the best in town. ; 

Bulfinch mentions a succession of works in architecture of private 
houses, ete., during this period, and the full list would probably include 
others not yet found or mentioned above, though those described are 


typical examples. 


OISL ‘NOLSOd ‘LAAULS LNOWAUL ‘MOU AGVNNOTOO 











* 
yr 


CHAPTER VIII 
THE GREAT SELECTMAN IN WAR AND PEACE 
HERE is little in the records for 1812 and 1813 to denote that 
“| Qe was in progress. Boston, never in favor of hostilities with 
England, went on largely 


undisturbed, and though 

















before the close there 





were suffering and busi- 
ness depression there was 
no participation in actual 


war. Yet while building 





activities continued there 


was little town expansion 


fA 
_t SE 














and no matters of im- 
portance bearing upon 


Bulfinch or his service 








during these two years. 





He gave his time to the 





steady routine of town 
affairs and made some 
designs, but of his atti- 
tude on the policies of the 


National Administration 





or toward the war we find DESIGN FOR A CITY HOUSE 
no hint. From the original drawing made after 1800 
Against the formal declaration of war suggested by President 
Madison, June 1, 1812, and adopted by Congress on the 18th, Boston 
[ 191 ] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


registered its opposition on the 11th in an unanimously adopted 
resolution that ‘it is of the last importance to the interests of this 
country to avert the threatened calamity of war with Great Britain, 
and also to restore the freedom of commerce, if these important 
objects can be attained consistently with safety and honor of the 
American Nation.’ A committee was appointed that, at an adjourned 
meeting of the town the following day, offered a report which after full 
debate was accepted and ‘the Selectmen were requested to transmit 
a copy thereof to each town in this Commonwealth.’ The report 
complains that “the National Government is unprepared for war, and 
that under pretense of resisting the invasion of maritime rights it has 
debarred its own citizens from the use of the ocean.’ ‘The decrees of 
France, the edicts of England, and the Acts of Congress . . . constitute 
in effect, a triple league for the annihilation of American commerce.’ 
Abandonment of commercial restrictions was the burden of both 
report and resolutions; war against Great Britain alone was ‘unjust,’ 
against both Great Britain and France ‘an extravagant undertaking,’ 
and an alliance with France a subversion of liberty and independence. 
The citizens of other commercial states are earnestly requested to join 
for ‘restoration of our unalienable commercial rights’ and ‘the se- 
curity of our peace.’ 

Two years later this spirit found its culmination in the Hartford 
Convention. Boston had made its protest, had uttered its warning 
with disapprobation; but war was declared, on what principle of states- 
manship it is difficult to discover. We cannot fail to see that com- 
mercial interests bulked large, coloring the spirit of patriotism; no 
more can we fail to recognize the essential fairness of the criticism of 
the Administration. 

Another step toward the Hartford Convention was taken by the 

[ 192 ] 


THE GREAT SELECTMAN IN WAR AND PEACE 


inhabitants in a meeting in F aneuil Hall August 6th, to condemn the 
mob violence against the freedom of the press in Baltimore. The 
resolution, ‘passed nearly unanimously in the affirmative,’ cited ‘that 
those outrageous proceedings are in our opinion attributable to the 
present wanton, impolitic, and unjust war... and that we perceive no 
refuge from destruction, but in a change in our present rulers.’ The 
article in the warrant to consider the expediency of calling a State 
Convention was warmly debated, continued in an adjourned meeting 
the next day when it was ‘nearly unanimously’ voted to choose 
Harrison Gray Otis, Christopher Gore, Dr. John Warren, Theodore 
Lyman, Samuel Parkman, David Sears, and a number of others with 
a delegate from the Town of Chelsea, delegates for the County of 
Suffolk to act with delegates from other counties in the matter. 

We do not hear of this question again in town meeting, but the out- 
come is found in the Resolves of the General Court, October 15, 1814, 
which, because the ‘Constitution of the United States had failed to 
provide protection to Massachusetts and Eastern Sections,’ adopted 
measures for defence and appointed twelve delegates to confer with 
delegates from other New England States to meet at Hartford De- 
cember 15th. Many of the names of the delegates are the same as 
those chosen by the town two years earlier for a possible State Con- 
vention. This futile Convention, which contributed to the overthrow 
of the Federalist Party, met in the State House at Hartford designed 
by Bulfinch and began its deliberations just as the treaty was signed, 
December 24th, which ended the war. 

Though the Selectmen were requested at the town meeting in 
August, 1812, to take all proper measures for preserving the public 
order, little was done or deemed necessary for defence. During 1812 
there was slight change in general business conditions or interruption 

[ 193 ] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


of commerce, trade being carried on with England by permission of 
Great Britain’s blockade squadron. But in 1813 matters steadily 
grew worse, ships lay idle in the harbor, and by the spring of 1814 the 
blockade of New England ports was well-nigh complete. Yet there 
was little privateering issuing from the port of Boston; in disdain of 
the war or on principle, it largely held aloof. Unlike the smaller coast 
towns Boston had suffered little from the depredations of the enemy, 
but by April, 1814, 1t was truly alarmed and measures for defence 
eagerly sought. The Chairman of the Selectmen sent a letter to the 
Adjutant-General assuring him of the desire of the town to codperate 
in measures of defence, and immediate steps were taken to guard the 
islands and exposed situations, men were put in training for heavy 
artillery, but the proposition to sink hulks in the channel near Castle 
and Governor’s Islands was not carried into effect, due to the counsel 
of the Marine Society. But all bridges were guarded and provision 
made for their destruction if necessary, and in September the Chair- 
man of the Selectmen, acting here and in all these important matters 
as the town’s chief executive, issued a call for volunteers to work on the 
fortifications. On October 13th, the Chairman acknowledges the 
valuable help received for the defence of the town and makes appeal 
to complete Fort Strong, and in November he informs the Secretary of 
the War Board that over twelve thousand dollars, subscribed by the 
citizens for defence works, awaited the order of the Board. But no- 
thing happened, Boston remained untouched, the reason why does 
not appear. 

The Massachusetts delegates appointed October 15th, met with the 
other delegates at Hartford December 15th, and with slight credit to 
themselves or the Commonwealth they represented voiced a sense of 
wrong, but wanting the vision of large statesmanship. The Treaty of 

[ 194 ] 


THE GREAT SELECTMAN IN WAR AND PEACE 


Ghent was signed December 24th; and the Selectmen’s meeting on 
February 15th was occupied, in conjunction with a committee from 
the General Court, in planning for a demonstration of the public joy. 
Very appropriately the day selected was February 22d. After a salute 
in the morning and an impressive service in King’s Chapel, there was 
a ‘grand civic procession’ in which all citizens were invited to join by 
the Selectmen. The procession halted at several places while the 
marshals read the proclamation of peace; countermarched on State 
and Broad Streets and was dismissed at the Old State House. A 
‘Public Dinner’ at the Exchange Coffee House was arranged by the 
Selectmen at which the Governor, the Lieutenant-Governor, members 
of the Council, Senate, and House, Judges, the President of Harvard, 
and other notables were guests. During the dinner a number of toasts 
were drunk, His Excellency Governor Strong offering, ‘Perpetual 
peace between Great Britain and the United States and harmony 
among ourselves.’ The celebration was concluded with fireworks in 
the evening. 

The unexpended balance of the contributions for defence was 
appropriated by the Selectmen in 1816 for the needed improvement of 
the Common, and Bulfinch and two other members were made a 
committee to superintend the work. The violent gale in the preceding 
September had wrought great havoc to the trees, uprooting not less 
than twenty-five, and this balance for defence was fittingly used in the 
adornments of peace. 

It will be seen even from this inadequate sketch that Bulfinch was 
closely associated with the events and business incident to the war. 
Since 1799, by his character and by faithful and efficient performance 
of his duties, he had become the chief executive in fact if not in name; 
but there is almost nothing to indicate his personal opinion and judg- 

[ 195 | 


CHARLES BULFINCH 














TREMONT STREET MALL 


ment on the matters we have been considering, and we can only guess 
his attitude on the action of the town in appointing delegates to a 
State Convention or on that of the General Court in instituting the 
Hartford Convention. He was a Federalist and doubtless in sympathy 
with the maritime interests of the town, but of his active participation 
in politics there is no evidence, while in all these issues we should 
expect fairness and perspective that touched the fundamentals. 

The ‘arduous duties’ of the Chairman of the Board increased and 
were recognized by his associates who more and more attended to the 
smaller matters that came before the Selectmen, but the larger and 
important interests had his full consideration. Of committees ap- 
pointed by the town for special work, composed of the Selectmen and 
others, he was not only the Chairman, signing the reports, but he 


entered fully into their content and the business involved, and the bulk 
[ 196 ] 


THE GREAT SELECTMAN IN WAR AND PEACE 


of the reports seem to have been written by him. Chairman of the 
‘Convention’ composed of the Selectmen, the Overseers of the Poor, 
and the Board of Health, which the General Court authorized in 1813 
to elect the Town Treasurer and Collector and to shape the financial 
affairs of the town, he not only signed all the annual reports, but 
rendered intimate and valuable service in the business involved. 
Hardly a committee on any important business was voted by the town 
of which he was not made Chairman. In these matters his judgment 


was sought and his executive ability recognized. 


} ws 
waited ee 





OLD ELM, BOSTON COMMON 
Showing Frog Pond and Rope Walks 


The report of one of these committees is of especial interest because 
it deals with a new era in the developing town life. Rendered on 
October 20, 1813, and signed by Bulfinch, it expresses approval of a 
petition to grant to a corporation, to be formed, the lands and flats 
lying about the shores of the bay west of Boston Neck for tide mills, on 
condition that the corporation should build a dam and bridge to South 

[ 197 ] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


Boston and another dam wide enough for a street from the foot of 
Beacon Street to Roxbury or Brookline. This marks the beginning of 
the expansion of Boston manufacturing interests which went forward 
steadily from this period. The war had helped to teach America that 
in industry as in government it should be free, and though with the 
cessation of hostilities commerce improved, capital was attracted in- 
creasingly to manufacturing. 

It is of interest to note that during the war a certain element in 
humanity ran true to type. So pronounced and common was the evil 
of cornering of articles of necessity that the town took decisive meas- 
ures against all ‘forestalling of the market’ and all fraudulent practices, 
threatening to revoke all licenses of vendors and dealers, and to bring 
to punishment those convicted. 

Following almost immediately the demonstration of joy on February 
22d, came the annual meeting of the town for the election of officers on 
Monday, March 13th, at which Bulfinch was not elected. The Town 
Clerk and the nine Selectmen were declared elected, and the meeting 
adjourned to Thursday. No reason is given in the record for this 
action, but at the meeting on Thursday we find that the gentlemen 
who had been chosen to the Board of Selectmen had declined to serve; 
whereupon the meeting proceeded to ballot again, with the result that 
Bulfinch and eight other men, five of whom were chosen Monday, were 
declared elected. The newspaper reports 2688 votes cast, ‘the largest 
vote ever recollected in March,’ adding, ‘all the candidates are re- 
spectable and esteemed Federalists.’ That Bulfinch received 1354 
votes to 1186 cast for his opponent indicates a real opposition. 

Again the meeting adjourned without transacting any other business 
to Friday, when eight of the members appeared to take the oath, in- 
cluding Mr. Bulfinch, who did so after he had delivered an address 

[ 198 ] 


THE GREAT SELECTMAN IN WAR AND PEACE 


which the meeting immediately and unanimously voted should be 
published in all the Boston papers. This address for all it reveals is 


given here entire: 


‘With your leave, Mr. Moprraror, I will thank my fellow townsmen 
for the honor they have done me in re-electing me to the office of Select- 
man by their deliberate choice, after a full consideration of the subject. 

‘Twenty-four years have elapsed since I was first chosen to this 
board; and I have ever since, with the exception of one interval of 
three years served the town with all the talents I was possessed of. — 
For sixteen years I have had the honor to preside at the board as 
Chairman. During this time, no application on public or private 
business has been received by me with insolence or treated with 
neglect. No complaint has been made of delay except where imperious 
circumstances made it necessary, but the claims and interests of every 
one have been promptly attended to. 

‘Notwithstanding this, I am sensible, that in many cases of 
straightening and widening streets, I have been obliged to oppose the 
private views, and personal interests of individuals; while my object 
has been to remedy evils which existed from former neglect, and in the 
removal of which the public convenience was materially concerned. 
In executing the laws for the maintenance of good order, collisions 
will sometimes happen with men whom I respect for their general 
conduct: but particularly in attempting to roll back the torrent of 
vice at the Hill at West Boston, or to control and keep it within 
bounds, I have incurred the enmity of some, whose friendship would 
be a disgrace. The prosecutions have been carried on in my name, but 
the fines have been paid to the complainants and to the County 


Treasurer, as his books will testify. 
[ 199 | 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


‘By your vote of re-election, you give evidence of your approbation 
of my conduct; and in this persuation I shall continue the same course 
of duty, upon the same principles which have always actuated me. — 
While now addressing my fellow citizens, I take the opportunity to 
mention, that during the long period in which I have attended public 
business, several attempts have been made to alter the form of our 
Town government, these have always failed, when attempted on a 
general scale; but I have seen so many changes gradually introduced, 
and so many laws have been passed by the Legislature for our particu- 
lar benefit, that I now think the system of Town-government nearly 
as perfect as town principles and habits will allow: in effecting these 
changes, the good effects of which have been tested by experience, I 
claim no other merit than for suggestions arising from a knowledge of 
the defects of the system, for the aid which I have afforded, when 
suitable opportunities have occurred; and for supporting them, in 
conjunction with my associates, to whose fidelity and zeal for the 
interest of the Town I can bear testimony; and between whom and 
myself the utmost harmony has ever existed. But I feel it a special 
duty to mention the last great improvement, by which the Town 
Treasurer and Collector is in future to be chosen by a convention of 
the three boards, who have the direction of the expenditure of the 
public money; this mode imposes a greater responsibility in the choice, 
and insures punctuality, dilligence and accuracy in the discharge of 
the duties of the office. For this important improvement, the Town 
is indebted to the firmness and perseverance of BENJAMIN WELD, Esq. 
whose acknowledged financial abilities authorized him to take a lead 
in such a measure. 

‘The establishment of a permanent Committee of Finance, who 
make an annual and particular report of the state of the monied 

[ 200 ] 


THE GREAT SELECTMAN IN WAR AND PEACE 


concerns of the Town is a measure of my proposing, and the publica- 
tion of the particulars of the annual expences was never done until 
adopted by me in the year 1800, the first year when I was Chairman. 
Such an account has ever since been annually prepared and published, 
unless directed otherwise by the Town. These measures must con- 
vince every person of reflection, that the board has ever been willing 
that its expenditures should be open to public inspection. 

‘After apologizing to the Town for occupying them so long on a 
subject which may appear personal, but which I thought necessary 
under present circumstances, I am now, Mr. Moderator, ready to take 


the oath required by law.’ 


From this straightforward utterance it is clear that the Chairman 
had run counter to private interests, and that some real effort had 
been made to grapple with entrenched vice at West Boston some 
years before Mayor Quincy’s strong action to which he refers at length 
in his ‘Municipal History of Boston.’ Touched and inspired by the 
token of the continued support of the majority of the citizens, he 
points with pride to some of the notable achievements under his 
administration, and in particular to the Committee of Finance which 
he had initiated and which proved so highly valuable in the new era 
he was helping to institute and to serve. 

Here, too, for a moment the Chairman emerges from the shadows of 
the records of votes and routine business and becomes a man of real 
flesh and blood, of moral principles and motives. He has done his full 
duty steadfastly, seeking no man’s favor, fearing no man’s censure. 
We rejoice with him in this moral triumph and we are glad for this 
little glimpse into the deeper and truer nature of this genuine citizen. 

In the following June another and more insistent attempt was made 

(meet) Taal 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


to make Boston a city, but though the large committee of representa- 
tive citizens made a strong report and presented a draft of a bill for the 
General Court, at a meeting held October 16th, the voters refused, 951 
to 920, at the adjourned meeting on November 13th, to adopt the 
recommendations. By this bill an Intendant was to be chosen annually 
who should be ea officio Chairman of the Selectmen and the chief 
executive of the city. The work of the finance committee was to go on 
practically unchanged, but provision was made for a police court. It is 
interesting to note as members of the reporting committee the names 
of John Phillips and Josiah Quincy, Boston’s first and second mayors 
respectively. 

The years 1816 and 1817 were uneventful, business was stagnant, 
and town improvements were curtailed in the interest of economy. 
In 1817 the town directed that the School Committee should be 
appointed henceforth by the Selectmen, a new police superintendent 
was chosen in place of Mr. Bulfinch, and subsequently the Chairman 
of the Selectmen was granted a salary of one thousand dollars. Thus 
some of the recommendations of the committee in 1815 for a city form 
of government were put in practice. 

A few items in the records are of local interest such as that under 
date of March, 1816, ‘Mr. Abraham Touro applied to the Town Clerk 
and requested that his religious profession might be recorded on the 
Town’s books... and that he belonged to a Synagogue of the Jews.’ 
Again, in June of the same year, ‘great complaints having been made 
of the irregularity in the time of the clocks of Boston, Cambridge and 
Salem, the Chairman was desired to invite Mr. Bowditch and Pro- 
fessor Farrar to agree upon a mode of drawing acurate meridian lines 
in those three places, that their time in future may be uniform.’ 

In 1816 a bequest was received from Abiel Smith, late of Boston, 

[ 202 ] 


THE GREAT SELECTMAN IN WAR AND PEACE 


consisting of a considerable amount of shares in various corporations, 
together with one thousand dollars, for the “maintainance and support 
of a school or schools ... for the instruction of people of color.’ The 
town had made its first appropriation for the education of colored 
children in the sum of two hundred dollars in 1812. This gift of Abiel 
Smith was exceptional, but it was a part of a movement that grew 
apace down the century making the philanthropic spirit of Boston 
known near and far. The city has increased in material wealth, but 
even more in human sympathy. 

It is difficult to appraise the moral and spiritual values of this town 
of considerably over thirty-five thousand people, to know the depths 
of ‘entrenched vice’ at West Boston or in other sections, or what was 
the real power of the Church in widening the human vision; but a 
broader interpretation of Christianity was expressed in the Church 
and in the community. Puritanism had steadily declined, the Old 
Testament code of ethics was giving way to the tolerance and brother- 
hood of the Christ. Bulfinch’s life falls within this period of transition 
with a constant registration for breadth and freedom. He may have 
hated evil, but never evil-doers, and his sympathy, so simple and free 
from false judgment, was in the spirit of his Master. It is here that 
Bulfinch is a high example of a quality of citizenship utterly different 
and nobler than that of the Puritan; and it is here that the value of his 
citizenship in the developing civilization of his day is rich indeed. 

In June, 1817, the town was greatly animated at the news of the 
proposed visit of the President of the United States, and a special 
meeting of the voters was called when the Selectmen and thirteen other 
gentlemen were requested to provide for suitable reception. The 
President’s journey had led through Rhode Island where he had 
visited Newport, Bristol, and Providence, at the latter place recelving 

[ 203 ] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


a delegation of the Committee of Arrangements from Boston. Tues- 
day night he spent at Dedham, and about twelve o’clock on Wednes- 
day, July 2d, a salute from South Boston announced his arrival, and 
the bells of the town began a merry peal. 

After a brief address by Harrison Gray Otis the procession de- 
scribed as being over a mile in extent, composed of a cavalry escort, 
part of the committee of arrangements on horse, the President on a 
white charger, Navy and Army officers, Mr. Bulfinch the Chairman, 
and other members of the committee in carriages and a large number 
of citizens on horse and in carriages, moved down Washington Street 
to Boylston and up to the Common where, at the sight of four thou- 
sand children, the President unconsciously stopped fora moment. The 
people thronged the entire line of march exceeding two and one half 
miles, cheering and expressing their joy and welcome; bands at 
various points on the route played, and the whole was a demonstration 
of enthusiasm and good-will. 

The President was received at the Exchange Coffee House where 
Bulfinch voiced the welcome of the people. Recalling the visit of his 
illustrious predecessor in 1789, the Chairman expressed the hope that 
the journey would contribute to a larger understanding of the interests 
and needs of all of the people and help to promote the common 
security; and that the powers vested in him by the Constitution ‘will 
be exercised with a sincere regard to the welfare of the people’ in the 
high spirit which has characterized his private and public life in the 
past. Assuring him of the earnest solicitude of the people of Boston, 
Mr. Bulfinch expressed the ardent desire that, ‘Your administration 
may, with the blessing of Heaven, ... promote the advancement of 
our beloved Country, to the highest possible condition of prosperity.’ 

To this address President Monroe replied in fitting and sincere 

[ 204 J 


THE GREAT SELECTMAN IN WAR AND PEACE 


terms. Among the guests at the dinner at the Exchange Coffee House 
at five o’clock were ex-President Adams, Lieutenant-Governor Phil- 
lips, President Kirkland of Harvard College, and the Committee of 
Arrangements. 

During the following days of the visit the President attended Christ 
Church on Sunday morning and received Communion, and in the 
afternoon at Channing’s Church. On Monday he was received by 
the President, Professors, and others of Harvard College; a procession 
was formed and marched to the Chapel in University Hall when the 
degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred on him, followed by a repast 
at President Kirkland’s home. On Tuesday President Monroe de- 
parted for Salem. During those crowded five days there were many 
events shared by Bulfinch, and thus was formed a mutual regard 
which had lasting and substantial results. In this experience Bulfinch 
must have had some measure of satisfaction and of reward incident to 
the duty of his office. 

Mr. Bulfinch presided for the last time at the meeting of the Board 
on December 22, 1817, when he reported that he had accompanied the 
Sheriff in taking possession of the land recovered from the heirs of 
Hancock, north of Beacon Hill. There was little other business and 
the meeting adjourned. The above report was his last service to the 
town, and ona matter that had engaged the town, and in particular 
the Selectmen, for over ten years. Thus closes almost nineteen years 
of continuous public service. practically as chief executive of the town, 
to which must be added his earlier period of four years on the Board. 
The Board met on December 24th to record the resignation of its 
Chairman and fix on a date for the election of his successor. There is 
no other record; but the town at the annual March meeting, 1818, 
‘Voted, that the thanks of the town be presented to Charles Bulfinch 

(20a 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


Esq. for his able and faithful services as a selectman for twenty-two 
years, nineteen of which he with great ability discharged the duties of 
Chairman of that board.’ 

The resignation was occasioned by Bulfinch’s acceptance, under date 
of December 12th, of the appointment as architect of the Capitol at 
Washington, formally confirmed by the Commissioner of Public Build- 
ings January 8, 1818, with the advice that the salary commenced as of 
December 11th. In a letter dated Washington, March 16th, Bulfinch 
writes of receiving a letter from the Town Clerk, ‘presenting a vote of 
the Town, expressing their thanks for my long and faithful services — 


the cheap reward of republics, for which, however, I am grateful.’ 


Z : SS a == See 
Cole St, ack e of Win. Powell Esp. bxthiel Price, Relus Amery, Venue Kings Chapel. 





OLD VIEW OF PART OF TREMONT STREET, ABOUT 1800 
Bulfinch lived west of Court Street, 1815-17. 


Any adequate summary of this unique and valuable service is im- 
possible, yet some word must be attempted. Charles Bulfinch’s 
service was to a town that grew from some seventeen thousand people 
at the close of the Revolution, almost devoid of modern necessities, to 
city proportions and demands, lacking only a few forms to make it a 
city, indeed. Very imperfectly we have traced the development and 
the part he had in it during almost thirty-one years, from his return 
from Europe in January, 1787, to his departure for Washington the 
last of December, 1817. The new system of education which admitted 
girls and enlarged the whole function of the public schools, the 
creation of a board of health, new, better, and wider streets, a real 

[ 206 ] 


THE GREAT SELECTMAN IN WAR AND PEACE 


police system, a Municipal Court, better accommodations for the 
poor and the sick, and last of all a finance committee of which he was 
Chairman, that brought order out of chaos, collected the taxes with 
a thoroughness only dreamed of before and safeguarded the money 
which was disbursed in conformity to a well-planned budget; —in all 
these important matters Charles Bulfinch served the town, associated 
with men with whom he worked in harmony and coéperation. 

Josiah Quincy, Boston’s second mayor, recounting in his ‘Municipal 
History of Boston’ the achievements of his own administration, so 
many and valuable, recognizes full well the sure foundation upon 
which he built, knowing that without foundation his structure would 
have-been far different. Writing of the latter years of the town 
government, Quincy says, ‘the data for its financial history are very 
complete and satisfactory and evidence wisdom and fidelity with which 
its affairs had been conducted’; and his personal tribute, printed in 
‘The Life and Letters of Charles Bulfinch’ is worthy of being repeated, 
‘Few men deserve to be held by the citizens of Boston in more grate- 
ful remembrance than Charles Bulfinch. During the many years he 
presided over the town government, he improved its finances, executed 
the laws with firmness, and was distinguished for gentleness and ur- 
banity of manners, integrity and purity of character.’ 

With reasonable pride Bulfinch recounts at the close of his life that 
the important improvements during his administration ‘were made by 
the town and paid for,’ so that, when he was invited to Washington, 
‘the debt of the town was only $14,000, with a population in 1818 of 
40,000’; ‘that the other improvements made in the years immediately 
following, while of great value for convenience and beauty, have 
occasioned a debt of $1,600,000, the interest of which is more than the 


whole annual tax of 1818.’ 
[ 207 ] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


Faithful in much, in the weightier matters of municipal advance we 
have considered, he was faithful also in little, in the performance of 
daily routine without which even the large matters come to naught. 
It is surprising that this man, who was not a good business man for 
his personal gain, should have been one of the best in public trust, with 
a certain talent for administration and execution. In principle he was 
high and pure, in integrity sure, in enforcement of law fearless and 
firm, yet ever tempered with fairness and charity. He had faults, but 
also virtues many; and he won the respect and confidence of the 
citizens of the town. His reward scanty, measured by material 
standards, was rich in enduring values, and monuments to his faithful 
service are everywhere in the town that honors itself by calling him its 


‘Great Selectman.’ 


CHAPTER IX 
DESIGNS IN ARCHITECTURE, 1812-1817 

HE bulk of the building designs during the period just con- 

sidered belongs to Bulfinch, though, as he records, competitors 
were beginning to have a share. These competitors were Benjamin, 
Willard, and Banner, who have been mentioned, and Alexander Parris, 
in Boston by 1815, who with Willard designed Saint Paul’s Church, 
built in 1820. But as long as 
Bulfinch remained in Boston 
the more important designs 
were his, some of which were 
executed during the war, fur- 
nishing another proof of how 
little the town was affected by 
hostilities. 

There is conclusive evidence 
that ‘a Grammer School, stone,’ 
in Bulfinch’s list was the third 
Latin School building erected in 
1812 with a facade quite in his 


spirit and on lines closely re- 





producing the middle elevation 
Preerold Court-House which THIRD LATIN SCHOOL BUILDING, 1812 
it faced, the site of the present City Hall. Information of the ex- 
ecuted design is confined to the old cut of the building which was 
demolished in 1844. It is interesting to recall that the Latin School 
was Boston’s only town school till 1682. 

[ 209 | 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


‘Two large school houses, brick,’ in Bulfinch’s hand, probably refer 
to the Hawkins Street School of 1803 and the Mason Street School 
built in 1816, but no illustration or description of these structures has 
been found. The dimensions of the Mason Street building are recorded 
as thirty-two by sixty-two feet of the ‘height of the Hawkins Street 
school house,’ and the Chairman and two other members of the 


Selectmen were made a committee to superintend its erection. 

















UNIVERSITY HALL AS ORIGINALLY BUILT 


Another design by him serving the purposes of education is Uni- 
versity Hall, Cambridge, Massachusetts, the corner-stone of which 
was laid July 1, 1813. Built of Chelmsford granite and first occupied 
in 1815, it stands to-day in ‘the Yard’ of Harvard College a fine ex- 
ample of Bulfinch’s art. The building which cost $65,000, is fifty by 
one hundred and forty feet and forty feet high, and contains a chapel 
forty-five by fifty-five feet and thirty feet high. The design doubtless 
called for two flights of steps into the yard on the east, omitted on 
account of economy and constructed some few years ago; but may not 
have included the portico which was voted and built with nine granite 

[ 210 ] 


DESIGNS IN ARCHITECTURE 


columns, which was removed in 1842. Thus the exterior as seen to- 
day, with west and east sides practically alike, is probably close to 
what Bulfinch planned. The proportions are those usually found in 
his designs and therefore good; but the treatment of the middle section 
with four pilasters does not fully satisfy. The building originally 
contained besides administration offices and the chapel, lecture-rooms 


and commons; but to-day is devoted to administration purposes 








UNIVERSITY HALL AFTER 1842 


entirely. There were four dining-rooms and two kitchens, the lines of 
the semi-circular openings for food from the kitchen still remaining; 
but commons, against which there was continual complaint, was 
abolished in 1842. The red hexagonal tiles of the corridors and the old 
granite stairs ascending to the second floor ‘miraculously sustained,’ 
though actually built into the walls on the cantilever principle the 
same as in the Massachusetts General Hospital, are still in use. 
Wooden staircases ascended to the third floor and opened upon the 
galleries of the chapel. The chapel, which was called ‘handsome’ and 
[ 211 | 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


“one of Mr. Bulfinch’s masterpieces,’ was occupied in 1814; previously 
to which time the First Church had been used, and, after 1858, Apple- 
ton Chapel. The pulpit was on the east where the present chimney 
cuts into the flanking window frames, and opposite was placed the or- 
gan, madein England, the gift of Mrs. Craigie and first used in 1821. 
The galleries at the ends were said to have been ‘deep,’ supported by 
columns and ‘richly panelled.’ Evidence that there were galleries is 
found in more than one record, one of which describing the visit of 
President Monroe in 1817 states that ‘the galleries had been opened 
for the admission of ladies.’ These galleries were not included in the 
restoration of the chapel in 1896 which was well done, removing the 
floor which divided the chapel in 1868, and restoring the decorative 
plan. There are six circular top windows on each side, a dado a little 
over five feet high, and a well-executed entablature. The room is now 
used for meetings of the faculty and contains many rare and interest- 
ing portraits. Across the south corridor are the offices of the President 
and the Secretary of the Corporation, both with a certain charm of 
simple design and beautiful furnishing. In the Secretary’s office may 
be seen President Jared Sparks’s sideboard and a portrait of Mrs. 
Sparks on the wall above it. In both rooms are stone fireplaces and a 
dado approximately three feet eight inches high. The building carries 
more than a century of association involving the hopes and ambitions 
of countless Harvard men and the vision of wider life and education. 
This interesting design by Bulfinch is indeed a worthy monument of a 
son of ‘Fair Harvard.’ 

The New South Church, Boston, dedicated in December, 1814, was 
likewise constructed of Chelmsford granite which by its beauty of 
finish was winning approval as a building material. This edifice is said 
to have been the first church in Boston to be built of hammered 

[ 212 | 





CHAPEL, UNIVERSITY HALL 


sd 
‘seer ve 


aE 


5B 




















SOUTH CHURCH, BOSTON 


NEW 


DESIGNS IN ARCHITECTURE 


granite, and to have owed much to its fine masonry. No more beauti- 
ful spot could have been chosen for a church than the strip of land 
between Summer and Bedford Streets, granted by the Town of Boston 
in 1715 to some petitioners, among them one Samuel Adams, father of 
the Patriot, and later called “Church Green.’ Here the first meeting- 
house was built on ground ‘high and lofty’ with an unobstructed view 
of the harbor. Later,when Summer Street had become one of the finest 
residential avenues in Boston, with magnificent overarching trees its 
entire length, more prosperous conditions demanded a new church. 

Bulfinch’s plan, an octagon, was based on a square of seventy-six 
feet, with four sides of forty-seven feet, two of which contained three 
windows each, and four smaller sides of twenty feet in each of which 
was a window. The height was thirty-four feet finished with a 
‘Roman Doric cornice of bold projection.’ The porch, projecting 
sixteen feet, was the extent of one of the sides, forty-seven feet; in 
front of this was a portico with ‘four fluted columns of Grecian Doric,’ 
fluted but otherwise Roman Doric. 

The spire is the best Bulfinch ever drew and displays originality in 
its general design. Some of its motives may have inspired Green for 
the spire of the church designed by him for the First Congregational 
Society, Providence, built in 1816, with results well pleasing in line, 
but with detail treatment somewhat faulty. Green’s combination of 
motives is exceptional, but his proportions are a delight, surpassing 
those in the New South. 

The interior was beautiful — light, rich, well-proportioned. If we 
examine the picture with the help of Shaw’s description of the interior 
we begin to realize some of the beauty which impelled the architect. 
‘Inside the house, the ceiling is supported by four Ionic columns 
connected above their entablature by four arches of moderate eleva- 

[ 215 ] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 





INTERIOR, NEW SOUTH CHURCH 


tion; in the angles, pendants or fans, rising form a circular horizontal 
ceiling, decorated with a centre flower. Between the arches and walls 
are groins springing from the cornice, supported by Ionic pilasters 
between the windows. The galleries rest upon smaller columns, and 
are finished in front with balustrades.’ These smaller columns were 
fluted with Roman Doric capitals. How well the galleries are worked, 
with lines running from the intersection of the shorter and longer sides 
of the building giving a depth of approximately fourteen feet, curving 
in toward the pulpit! 

The Reverend S. G. Bulfinch, son of the architect, in an address 
before the Boston Society of Architects, a number of years ago, said of 
this building that “special attention was paid to speaking and hearing 
owing to the delicate health of the pastor. With this view, a flat ceiling 
was introduced instead of the dome which the form of the building 
would have rendered suitable.’ From English authorities Bulfinch had 

[ 216 | 


DESIGNS IN ARCHITECTURE 


been led to believe that a flat ceiling was better acoustically than a 
domical one. The old photograph indicates that the construction fol- 
lowed the design seen in the two small drawings which call for a flat ceil- 
ing for the major part with a certain groined treatment at the angles. 

The pulpit so well-balanced in line, so beautiful in detail, was built 
of mahogany and suggests Bulfinch’s Lancaster pulpit and Green’s 
Providence pulpit as we shall see later. Lacking the lightness of the 
other two which it doubtless inspired, it is a beautiful design harmoniz- 
ing well with the church interior. It is interesting to compare Bul- 
finch’s sketch for the treatment back of the pulpit with the different 
execution, but no drawing by him for the pulpit has been found. 
Considering the depression and confusion due to the war, it is surpris- 
ing that a church so costly should have been undertaken and carried 
to completion. All through the fall of 1814 the citizens were exerting 
themselves to the utmost for defence, but in December when the 
church was dedicated the terror was nearly over. 

The increasing demand for a House of Industry was considered by a 
committee, of which Bulfinch was Chairman, that recommended a 
building to cost about twenty thousand dollars on land west of the 
Almshouse on Leverett Street, and the town voted the same Septem- 
ber 5, 1814. No action was taken following this vote, due doubtless to 
the preparations for defence which may have postponed indefinitely fur- 
ther action. The final outcome was the purchase, in 1821, of fifty-three 
acres of land at South Boston and the erection of a three-story stone 
building two hundred and twenty by forty-three feet and twenty- 
nine feet high, completed in 1822. While Bulfinch as Chairman made 
the earlier report when the house was voted to be built in Leverett 
Street, the plan for the South Boston building was probably drawn by 
some one else. 

Pen ros 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


The ‘jail in Leverett Street,’ which Bulfinch records as built after 
the close of his services to the town in 1817, was probably the County 
Jail which was begun in 1821. There is a plan in the City Hall, Boston, 
signed by Bulfinch and undated, which is interesting and may be the 
one executed; but no record has been found and no illustration of the 
buildings. 

The residences erected after the close of the war, which can be 
ascribed to Bulfinch, are few with scanty description or illustration. 
The costly double stone house, of little architectural merit judging 
from the old photograph, which David Hinckly built on the corner of 
Beacon and Somerset Streets, carries a Bulfinch tradition, but there is 
no evidence. Nor is there evidence to connect Bulfinch with the stone 
house which David Sears erected on the site of the old Copley resi- 
dence. It had a swell front on lines introduced by Bulfinch and later 
was much enlarged as we see it to-day, the home of the Somerset Club, 
Solomon Willard carving the ornamental tablets on the front. 

The so-called Blake-Shaw house, really Blake-Tuckerman, which 
Samuel Parkman built of Chelmsford granite in Bowdoin Square, was 
finished undoubtedly in 1815 and, by family tradition, was from 
Bulfinch’s design which a study of the old illustration confirms. There 
also is a Bulfinch plan very close to the lines and details executed, 
except the lower entrance floor and the balconies above the doors 
omitted in the sketch. The northerly half of this house was deeded 
by Parkman to his son-in-law, Edward Tuckerman, Jr.,in 1817. The 
southern half, occupied by Mrs. Blake, came into her possession in 
1824 by will of her father, who left to his daughter, Mrs. Shaw, the 
house occupied by her in Cambridge Street. 

Mention should be made of the double house, Beacon and Walnut 
Streets, which Uriah Cotting built on the site of his ambitious and 

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DESIGNS IN ARCHITECTURE 


costly residence which, completed up to the first story, he was obliged, 
from altered fortune, to take down. This double house was begun in 
1813; the westerly half, now much changed, was first sold by Cotting 
to Nathaniel P. Russell in February, 1814, and the easterly half be- 
came the property of Samuel Appleton, in 1818. The old illustration 
shows some Bulfinch marks, and while no evidence has been found, it 
is interesting to compare it with the house on the opposite corner built 
by John Phillips about 1805, possibly designed by Bulfinch, to which 
reference has been made. 

Weare on difficult ground in trying to determine Bulfinch residences 
of this period owing practically to no evidence and to competitors who 
not unlikely followed his motives. There is little warrant for ascribing 
39 and 40 Beacon Street to Bulfinch, though these houses are very 
beautiful and interesting and have some Bulfinch tradition. It is 
doubtful if they were begun before 1818 when Bulfinch was in Wash- 
ington; but, though the actual design may not have been by Bulfinch, 
they show his influence. The interiors now richly and ornately fin- 
ished, more or less changed since 1818, follow Adam motives which 
are not strongly characteristic of known Bulfinch houses. We may 
admire the Scripps-Booth house, built probably about 1806 in Bowdoin 
Square and later incorporated in the Revere House, but we are unable 
to find in it evidence of Bulfinch’s design. 

Traditions of Bulfinch residences are found in a number of communi- 
ties, some of which have been rejected because groundless, others be- 
cause of lack of any record or of architectural design common to him. 
Evidence that he designed any house in Salem, Massachusetts, is not 
conclusive. Doubtless also there are single residences with as much 
claim to be included as some of those here mentioned. More light will 
come with the years. But while it should be definitely understood that 

[ 221 J 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


to establish individual authorship for the bulk of examples which carry 
undoubted Bulfinch influence is impossible, there is evidence, some 
circumstantial, some conclusive, for nearly all the residences here de- 
scribed. The essential thing is to know the main motives of design, the 
strong sense of proportions, and the handling of good ornamentation, 
and thus to have an increasing appreciation of what Bulfinch did and 
of his rich contribution to this class of architecture. Naturally his in- 
fluence and leadership were recognized and followed in Boston, in 
Salem by McIntire, and elsewhere, and in that his service lies beyond 
actual designs made by him; but to attempt to show how wide this in- 
fluence reached would be futile. Not all of his designs have the same 
value, while some doubtless were marred by economy or in execution; 
but his great merit lay in an innate sense of beauty, which ever involves 
balance and proportion. 

The Salem, Massachusetts, Almshouse which next claims our atten- 
tion, constructed of brick, two hundred feet in length with a middle 
portion forty feet in extent projecting approximately twenty feet, was 
ready for occupancy November 30, 1816. It contained hospitals and a 
chapel, had two connecting rooms on the floor above the basement 
designed for the Superintendent, with embrasured windows and a low 
dado, but the building has few architectural features and is interesting 
only for its generally plain finish. While there have been additions and 
some interior changes the original building, five stories in front, in- 
cluding the basement, and four in the rear, remains substantially as in 
1816. 

The story of the edifice for the Church of Christ, Lancaster, 
Massachusetts, can be told more fully because it survives to-day in all 
its beauty, cherished by town-folk and admired by visitors. The 
oldest of the four buildings that face ‘the Green,’ looking south toward 

[ 222 | 





PORTICO OF LANCASTER CHURCH 


DESIGNS IN ARCHITECTURE 


the Town House, it dominates the setting with a beauty all its own 
and with a subtle spirit that falls with the shadows at morn or after- 
noon. 

The corner-stone was laid July 9, 1816; the building was completed 
within the year, and dedicated Wednesday, January 1, 1817. The 
sermon was preached by the Reverend Nathaniel Thayer, D.D., the 
minister of Lancaster, whose descendants to-day constitute a very in- 
fluential part of the town and congregation. The cost, approximately 
twenty thousand dollars, was ordered by vote of the town and assessed 
on the pews. The edifice, without doubt the finest proportioned of 
all Bulfinch’s churches, though with an interior less elaborate and 
_ costly than the New South, Boston, was reared almost wholly by 
artisans of Lancaster — a noble memorial to their skill and integrity 
— of Lancaster brick in Flemish bond, Lancaster timber, and the 
celebrated Bolton lime. In size, seventy-four by sixty-seven and a half 
feet, with a porch or vestibule forty-nine feet in width, projecting 
nineteen feet, and a portico four inches less on each side in width, and 
projecting seventeen feet, it stands to-day almost exactly as built, and 
practically as sound. 

The fagade and cupola are deserving of long and careful study and 
bear witness to the influence of Bulfinch’s trip abroad. Suggested in 
the New North, Boston, the result here is wonderfully fine. Especially 
noteworthy are the colonnaded portico with a charm hinted in the 
picture, the ornaments in the angles between the tower and attic, the 
almost perfect proportions of the cupola, surrounded by twelve Ro- 
man Ionic columns, supporting a well-balanced entablature, and the 
suggestion of old Roman construction seen in the lines of the dome. 
The height of the vane is one hundred and eighteen feet, and the 
cupola carries a Revere bell, which, recast on account of some defect, 

[ 225 | 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


bears the date 1822. The treatment of the entrance doors 1s simple, all 
having beaded frames and a one-and-a-half-inch round moulding in 
the angles of the frames and masonry. 

A study of New North (1804), New South (1814), and Lancaster 
(1816) reveals Bulfinch’s great advance. The fagade of New North is 
faulty, its proportions poor, its details not coérdinated; the progress 
in the treatment of por- 
tico, porch, and tower in 
New South is marked; 
Lancaster is the work of 
a master. Here is growth, 
the development of a 
progressive mind. 

The porch or vestibule 
has a distinctly New Eng- 
iand spirit, with the dig- 
nity and plainness of a 
New England meeting- 
house fifty years earlier. 
There are touches of 
beauty here, but they are: 
few and not what the ex- 


terior leads us to expect. ~ 





Two staircases bend in 


LANCASTER CHURCH PORCH 


and meet halfway in a 
common landing, under which the congregation passes to the middle 
inner door; a broader staircase ascends to the upper floor, passing 
from thence to right or left to the galleries, or up a narrow flight 


of stairs to the belfry. 
2265) 


DESIGNS IN ARCHITECTURE 


On passing from the porch into the church we come upon beauty 
fully worthy of the best of the exterior. The interior which meets the 
eye, with the exception of the ceiling and wall ornamentation and 
certain changed details in the north end, is the same substantially as 
when finished in 1816. In 1881 the Thayer Memorial Chapel was 
built, connecting with the church, necessitating the cutting of two 
doors, the closing-up of the arched window back of the pulpit, and the 
removal of four pews on each side of the pulpit. Two windows each 
side of the pulpit, on the lines of the lower and upper rows of windows, 
eight in all, had been closed at an earlier date. In the gallery a few 
changes were made when the organ was installed. Otherwise the 
seating is as originally planned. 

In 1869, a proposition was made to run a floor on the level of the 
gallery floors, thus converting the structure into a lower vestry and an 
upper church. This was in line with what actually happened in so 
many New England churches, but would have been little short of van- 
dalism. The beautiful pulpit would have been lost, and low-studded 
utility rooms would have taken the place of the present beautiful 
interior. To the courageous and vigorous stand of the minister, Dr. 
George M. Bartol, the church is everlastingly indebted that the plan 
was abandoned. At that time the interior was redecorated and an 
organ installed. 

There is no picture of the interior of the church prior to the changes 
made necessary by the erection of the chapel. What Bulfinch would 
have done with the wall and ceiling treatment, had he been given a 
free hand, may be imagined from a study of the State House, Boston. 
Certainly the walls and ceiling in 1816 did not harmonize with the 
galleries, pulpit, and other details, including the cornice, and the 
decoration in 1900, while not Bulfinch’s, in some degree suggests 

[ 227 ] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


what he did elsewhere, notably in the moulding designs, some of 
which are found in the Massachusetts State House and also in 
Saint Stephen’s Church, Walbrook, London, which Bulfinch admired, 
and are in keeping with his good taste. The gallery, supported by 
fluted columns with Roman Doric capitals, with no bases, ten feet 
eleven inches high and well-proportioned, is enclosed with an open 
balustrade, so called, and curves in toward the south end. At present 
there is no way of artificially ighting the church, and the old method of 
heating it with two stoves is still in use. The pews are made of pine, 
stained cherry color, and the numbers on the doors, at one time 
covered, have been restored. Side pews, four feet by eight feet, suggest 
the old style ‘box pews,’ while those in the middle of the church, three 
feet by ten feet, are usually called ‘slips.’ The windows have inside 
blinds. The two busts at the south end are of Dr. Thayer (1793-1840), 
and of Dr. Bartol (1847-1906), and were executed by Bela Pratt. 

Of the pulpit, much should be said, or very little, and it. should 
be seen and carefully studied; then the judgment of architects well 
qualified to pass upon it would be confirmed, that no more beautiful 
pulpit of its type exists in America. Not only is the proportion of 
width to height well-nigh perfect, but it possesses lightness and grace 
to a high degree. The only change in this design from the original is 
the removal of the arched window which was covered with ‘a rich green 
curtain of figured satin and velvet with a ball fringe roping and 
tossel.’ The present curtain is red damask. The pulpit, painted white, 
stands on a platform four inches high, with Ionic columns six feet five 
and a half inches high, with total height from the platform of ten feet 
eight inches. The panelling and two mahogany doors enclose a twenty- 
five-inch space which originally contained stairs — the only way of 
entering the pulpit until the chapel was built in 1881, 

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INTERIOR OF LANCASTER CHURCH 


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PRINTS 





PULPIT, LANCASTER CHURCH 


DESIGNS IN ARCHITECTURE 


The pulpit of New South, all so beautiful, suggesting in almost 
every line the Lancaster pulpit, lacks the latter’s almost perfect 
proportions and that lightness and grace which is the charm of the 
later design. It 1s of more than passing interest to compare these two 
Bulfinch pulpits with that in the First Congregational Church, 
Providence, designed by John H. Green, a Providence architect, and 
built in 1816. There is unmistakable evidence that Green drew 
inspiration from Bulfinch, and in particular from New South, giving 
to his Providence church a domical ceiling which was the logical treat- 
ment for the New South plan, together with much in line and detail 
that makes the Providence church exceptionally interesting. 

It is fitting to conclude the story of this edifice with a reference to 
the men who executed the design. That Charles Bulfinch was the 
architect is beyond question, though his name does not appear on the 
town records. This church is listed by Bulfinch, and he is also credited 
with its design in a newspaper report at the time of dedication. Why 
he should have been chosen to design the church is not hard to de- 
termine. Almost every man who was chosen by the town to aid in 
procuring land, to consider plans, or to form the building committee, 
was or had been a member of the General Court, and so had ample 
opportunity to see the wonderful Bulfinch State House and its 
exquisite interior finish. The building committee consisted of Eli 
Stearns, at the General Court, 1806-10; Jacob Fisher, 1811-13; and 
William Cleveland, 1813-15. Eli Stearns was a local carpenter and 
builder, and a first-class workman, as more than one Lancaster 
residence now standing attests. Jacob Fisher was a cabinet-maker and 
a progressive business man, and possessed of rare skill with tools. 
Doubtless his hand carved the pulpit. It is a splendid work in every 
detail. There is a story of ‘Jacob Fisher and the Twelve Apostles’ 

23 La 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


based on the tradition that Jacob Fisher gave twelve columns for the 
church. These undoubtedly were the eight columns and the four 
pilasters under the pulpit, and would thus naturally connect his hand 
with the pulpit and its carving. William Cleveland, a man of taste and 
refinement, born in Salem, 1777, and coming to Lancaster in the early 
part of the nineteenth century, must have seen something of the 
wonderful work of McIntire, who died 1811, and hence was an ardent 
inspirer in choosing the Bulfinch design and carrying it to execution, 

There is no evidence that Bulfinch was ever in Lancaster, the plan 
being interpreted by ‘Capt. Thomas Hersey, master builder,’ as the 
town record reads. Hersey was born in Hingham, Massachusetts, in 
1763 of a long line of Hingham masons and builders, and coming to 
Boston we find him in 1798 owning and occupying a home in Short 
Street (near Essex) where he had a carpenter shop. He is called 
‘housewright’ in 1803 and onward, and a ‘bricklayer’ in 1813, and not 
unlikely was employed on Bulfinch buildings, though that has not 
been established. Subsequently he moved to Harvard, after 1813 and 
certainly before 1816, and was somewhat prominent in the affairs of 
the town. He died there in 1839, aged seventy-six years. As Harvard 
adjoins Lancaster, the employment of Hersey on the Lancaster 
Church was natural, becoming thus the interpreter of Bulfinch’s 
design to the men who executed it, who, knowing the principles of 
construction and the use of tools, built with integrity and on honor. 
All high praise to those early artisans who wrought themselves into 
this enduring monument, as well as to him whose mind conceived its 
beauty. The church is a unique example not only of Bulfinch’s fine 
achievement, but of the highest development of this style of architec- 
ture in America. 

Some years after Joseph Barrell’s death the Somerville estate was 

[ 232 ] 


DESIGNS IN ARCHITECTURE 


sold and Bulfinch was engaged to design buildings for the new McLean 
Hospital, which were ready for occupancy in 1818. Taking the man- 
sion built in 1792 from his design, Bulfinch added another story with a 
pediment to the middle section, continued the ends up to three stories 
and built on two wings. 
Besides this central 
structure for administra- 
tion and other purposes, 
two other buildings, forty 
by seventy-six feet each, 
were erected flanking the 
central one. 

These buildings, en- 
larged and changed with 
the years, were demol- 
ished in 1896 after the 
removal of the hospital 
to Waverley. Besides the 





exceptionally fine stair- 


case and drawing-room McLEAN HOSPITAL, THE REMODELLED BARRELL 


of the old mansion which MANSION 


we have considered, the architectural merit lies in the remodelled 
north and south fronts and had a charm almost as great as that of the 
original. Photographs preserved at Waverley show not only the old 
interior, but the general plan and setting of the group. The Bulfinch 
characteristics are seen in the remodelling of the mansion, but what 
he designed for the interior, for which, in connection with his plans 
for the General Hospital, he made a special visit to the hospitals in 
New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, does not appear. 
[ 233 | 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


Two buildings of this period belonging to Phillips Academy, An- 
dover, Massachusetts, claim attention by their real merit. Only one — 
was listed by Bulfinch, at first called Bartlett Hall and a little later 
Bartlett Chapel, a gift of William Bartlett, of Newburyport, to the 
Trustees of the Academy for use of the Theological School. Begun in 


1817 and completed the following year at a cost of $23,374, 1t con- 





PEARSON HALL, ANDOVER, MASSACHUSETTS 


tained a chapel at one end and a library at the other with recitation 
rooms above. The half-sized windows were designed to give light to 
chapel galleries and the library, and are somewhat unique. In 1878 a 
tower was added on the west side and interior changes made; and 
when the Theological School was removed to Cambridge in 1908, the 


name was changed to Pearson Hall. In 1923 a restoration was made 
[ 234 | 








THIRD BUILDING, PHILLIPS ACADEMY 


eh: 


i Labi 
at Sa 





ENERAL HOSPITAL, BOSTON, 1818-20 


MASSACHUSETTS G 


DESIGNS IN ARCHITECTURE 


involving the removal of the tower and a change of location by which 
the building now faces north on the new quadrangle. 

The other building, erected in 1818 for the Academy, has clear 
Bulfinch characteristics, notably its pediment on the slightly project- 
ing middle elevation, and the beautifully proportioned cupola. The 
exterior is substantially the same as when built, but the interior, due 
to alterations in 1865 and later, shows no trace of original plan or 
finish. The cost was $13,252.73, of which $5000 was contributed by 
Lieutenant-Governor William Phillips. 

The dimensions of the ground plans of both these structures are 
almost the same, Pearson Hall (Bartlett Chapel) being eighty-eight 
feet, three inches, by forty feet, two inches, and the other is eighty by 
forty feet. Both buildings with their fine proportions are notable 
examples of Bulfinch designs. Prized as they are by the Trustees and 
friends of the Academy, they stand worthy illustrations of the past 
and an inspiration for the future. 

Though the condition of incorporation of the Massachusetts 
General Hospital in 1811, that $100,000 should be raised within ten 
years, was met at once by the gift of John McLean of the entire 
amount with a subsequent bequest of $50,000 divided between Harvard 
College and the Hospital, it was not till December, 1816, that Bulfinch 
was sent by the Hospital Board to visit other hospitals and report on 
their construction and management. His report was well received, and 
he proceeded at once with plans for McLean, superintending their 
execution, but no action was taken on the project for the General 
Hospital till after his removal to Washington. At a meeting of the 
trustees on January 25, 1818, a committee reported that the plan 
for a hospital by Mr. Bulfinch deserved the premium; and on Feb- 
ruary the plan, slightly modified by the committee, was adopted and 

[eo tel 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


immediate steps were taken to have the stone hammered at the State 
Prison. 

The acceptance of this plan was highly pleasing to Bulfinch, who 
wrote from Washington on February Ist, “It was quite beyond my 
expectation. I confess, 
however, that it grati- 
fied me... that my last 
act for Boston’ was ac- 
cepted ‘under circum- 
stances which preclude 
personal influence.’ The 
corner-stone was laid 
July 4, 1818, with Ma- 
sonic ceremony, the com- 
mittee in October, 1820, 
reported the centre and 
easterly sections nearly 
completed, and on Au- 
gust 21st following Drs. 
Jackson and Warren were 
notified that the build- 


ing would be ready for 





LOWER CORRIDOR STAIRS, MASSACHUSETTS 
GENERAL HOSPITAL 


patients September Ist. 
This structure, approxi- 
mately thirty-five by one hundred and fifty feet, was located in the 
“West End’ and thus became the nucleus of that immense equipment 
which to-day, with splendid tradition and spiritual devotion, makes 
possible the service to suffering thousands. 

The original plans have not been found, but doubtless the commit- 

[ 238 ] 


DESIGNS IN ARCHITECTURE 


tee’s modification was slight. It is interesting to compare the origi- 
nal building of Chelmsford granite and almost faultless construction 
with one of Thomas’s ‘Original Designs in Architecture,’ published 
in London in 1783. A copy of this book, for which it would seem he 
paid $10, had influence on Bulfinch and contains a number of striking 
motives in common with 
some used by him. His 
treatment of the entabla- 
ture of the porch, though 
classically defective, is 
simpler and better than 
the design by Thomas 
both in proportion and 
ornamentation. The ad- 
ditions to the original 
wings, made a few years 
after the erection of the 
building, must be elimi- 
nated in the estimate of 
the lines which otherwise 


are unchanged. The ar- 





chitectural defects lie in 


the treatment of the mid- 4 SECOND-FLOOR CORRIDOR, MASSACHUSETTS 
’ GENERAL HOSPITAL 
dle section above the roof, 


due doubtless to the practical demands for chimneys, and in the low 
dome almost concealed. A better handling of the design for the dome 
is found in the Maine State House a decade later. 

Though most of the rooms show considerable change, the entrance 


corridors and staircases are substantially as originally constructed and 
[ 239 ] 


CHARLES BULFINCH. 


exceptionally interesting. In the basement are found the old red tiles, 
seven and one half inches square, which are repeated on the third 
floor, and groined elliptical ceilings in the basement and in the halls 
above. The solid granite stairs, set in the walls with little evidence of 
being out of line, rise from the basement to the second floor carrying 
iron balusters and wood rails, but, while the construction is the same 
as in University Hall, the lines are more beautiful. The floors are 
granite, the blocks varying from twenty-two to twenty-six inches in 
width, and are four and one half feet in length. The upper stairs are of 
wood and lead to the old operating-room where, in 1846, ether was 
first used in a surgical operation of magnitude by Dr. John C. Warren. 

There are interesting details in the building, old doors with wrought- 
iron hinges, semi-elliptical windows over the second-floor hall doors, 
simple mouldings on doors and windows; but the great charm lies in 
the exterior lines and in the entrance corridors. The total impression 
is of a good design exceptionally well executed. From ‘this last act for 


Boston,’ we turn to Bulfinch’s career at the National Capitol. 


CHAPTER X 
THE NATIONAL CAPITOL AND A FEW DESIGNS 

URING the nearly twelve and a half years in Washington, 
ae) sic Bulfinch called the happiest of his life, the citizen was 
overshadowed by the architect. Engaged on a work that deeply 
absorbed and interested him, he moved in the best society; yet of the 
growing National life, the people he met, the ideas exchanged, there is 
scarce a hint, and the home and personal life emerges from the shadow 
no more than in Boston. His was not the mind of Jeremy Belknap, and 
in that respect is to be keenly regretted. It is evident that he was 
happy, made friends, welcomed friends and guests, especially from 
New England, carried on his professional work with increasing satis- 
faction to the Administration and Congress, winning the confidence 
and respect of his associates: moreover, all the time as a loyal and 
true citizen; but we get no intimate or personal touch. A few letters, 
very few, and containing almost nothing of National or professional 
import, a few reports, no diary, no account written in the leisurely 
after years — such, in brief, is all we have of this important peried 
which began the first of January, 1818, and ended June 3, 1830. 


The circumstances leading to his removal to Washington are best 
described in Bulfinch’s own words which conclude his brief life sketch. 
Strangely, this sketch cannot be found among the family papers to- 
day, and the narration is copied from ‘Life and Letters’: 

‘At the close of the war a project was started for building two 
hospitals, one for insane subjects, and the other with the title of the 
“General Hospital,” and by the influence of my brother Coolidge I 

[ 241 | 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


was sent by the board of agents to view the hospitals of New York, 
Philadelphia and Baltimore, to observe their construction and to get 
a knowledge of the detail of their expenses and management. This 
commission was accepted by me willingly, as a proof of the continued 
confidence of the most respectable members of our community. I 
proceeded to execute it, and made reports of my proceedings on my 
return that I believe were quite satisfactory. 

‘When at Baltimore, being so near Washington city, I determined 
to visit it, and passed three days there. I was much gratified by my 
view of the situation, and in seeing Congress in session, and left the 
city without any expectation of visiting 1t again, but it was so ordered 
that this visit led to the most important consequences. I was intro- 
duced by one of our Senators, Mr. Lloyd, to Mr. Monroe, President 
elect; he received me kindly, expressed his approval of the objects of 
my journey and afterwards directed Col. Lane, Commissioner of the 
Public Buildings, to conduct me over the ruins of the Capitol. This 
was on January 7, 1817; on the following July, Mr. Monroe visited 
Boston, as President of the United States; a large Committee was 
appointed by the Town to receive him, and I as Chairman of the 
Selectmen and Committee read to him the address of the Town before 
a large concourse of people assembled in the floor of their Exchange 
Coffee house. My duty as Chairman led me to be almost constantly 
in company with the President during his visit of about a week, after 
which I proceeded in my usual course, making drawings and directing 
workmen at the Insane hospital in Charlestown. 

‘About November following, I received a letter from William Lee, 
Esq., one of the Auditors at Washington, and in the confidence of the 
President, stating the probability of the removal of Mr. Latrobe, the 
architect of the Capitol, and proposing that I should apply for the 

[ 242 | 


THE NATIONAL CAPITOL AND A FEW DESIGNS 


place. I declined making any application that might lead to Mr. 
Latrobe’s removal; but before the end of the year, disagreements be- 
tween him and the Commissioner became so serious that he deter- 
mined to resign, and his resignation was immediately accepted. On 
receiving information of this, in another letter from Mr. Lee, I made 
regular application through J. Q. A., Secretary of State, and by return 
of post received notice from him of my appointment, with a salary of 
twenty-five hundred dollars and expenses paid of removal of family 
and furniture.’ This salary was continued during the entire period of 
his service, though in September, 1822, an attempt was made to reduce 
it to two thousand dollars, which failed on the simple merits of the 
question submitted by Bulfinch. 

Evidently on receipt of the letter from John Quincy Adams dated 
Washington, December 4, 1817, Bulfinch departed from Boston, not 
before December 22d, when he was present at the meeting of the 
Selectmen, and by December 24th, when the Board records his resig- 
nation, arriving in Washington on or before January 6th. His first 
letter, written to his wife under date of January 7th, describes his 
interview with the President: ‘We have been admitted to-day to an 
interview with the President: after passing up a noble stairway 
through a suite of elegant rooms, we found him seated alone in a 
most splendid apartment, covered with a rich blue paper, with broad 
gold borders, and gold flowers at suitable intervals. My reception was 
honourable and perfectly satisfactory, it was even cordial; the Presi- 
dent expressed himself gratified at my acceptance of the office, and 
hoped advantage would arise from it to myself as well as to the 
government. He entered fully on the subject of the Public Buildings, 
and without mentioning the particular causes of offence with the late 
architect, clearly evinced that he was not satisfied with his conduct or 

P22'se | 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


plans while he gave him credit for professional skill. The President 
said that immediately on a vacancy occurring, his attention had been 
turned to me, and that the offer would have been made if I had not 
applied; he promised me his support, and invited me to frequent calls 
and personal application to him.’ 

Later in the day, accompanied by the chief surveyor, he went over 
the Capitol building inspecting the work in progress; and the next 
day, January 8th, he took possession of his office in the Capitol, which 
was furnished with tables, desks, drawing-materials, etc., where from 
ten to three o’clock he kept office hours. He visited the workshops 
and found about one hundred and twenty men employed principally 
in cutting and finishing the great marble columns, and a number of 
sculptors, some at work on a figure of Liberty twelve feet high to be 
raised over the Speaker’s chair in the House of Representatives. In 
the same letter he writes: 

‘I have received from Col. Lane a great number of drawings, ex- 
hibiting the work already done, and other parts proposed, but not 
decided on. At the first view of these drawings, my courage almost 
failed me — they are beautifully executed, and the design is in the 
boldest stile — after longer study I feel better satisfied and more 
confidence in meeting public expectation. There are certainly faults 
enough in Latrobe’s designs to justify the opposition to him. His 
stile is calculated for display in the greater parts, but I think his stair- 
cases in general are crowded, and not easy of access, and the pas- 
sages intricate and dark. Indeed, the whole interior, except the two 
great rooms, has a sombre appearance. I feel the responsibility rest- 
ing on me, and should have no resolution to proceed if the work was 
not so far commenced as to make it necessary to follow the plans al- 
ready prepared for the wings; as to the centre building, a general con- 

[ 244 ] 


THE NATIONAL CAPITOL AND A FEW DESIGNS 


formity to the other parts must be maintained. I shall not have 
credit for invention, but must be content to follow in a prescribed 
path.’ 

Of the first Sunday in Washington Bulfinch writes in the letter 
quoted: 

“We have this day attended service in the Congress hall; it was 
respectably filled with many of the members, and a number of the in- 
habitants of the vicinity, among whom were many genteel and well 
dressed females. The service was the Episcopal form of afternoon 
prayer, singing without any instrumental music, and for want of 
books, two lines at a time of the psalm read off by the chaplain, to 
guide the congregation: an excellent sermon on the “foolishness of 
preaching” closed the duties of the day, which were conducted with 
great propriety and serious effect. After service I was recognized by 
several gentlemen from your quarter, and we paid a visit, at their 
lodgings, to some others.’ 

In spite of the limitations found in this and other religious services, 
the inconvenient distances and bad walking, in the straggling com- 
munity, the first impression of Washington on Bulfinch was favorable. 
He liked the climate and the views, found congenial friends, a demo- 
cratic society, good markets; and his spirit responded to the life there 
taking shape. The following Monday, Bulfinch met Dr. Thornton, then 
head of the Patent Office, whose design for the Capitol had been ac- 
cepted in 1793. He thought the Doctor a ‘singular character’ and ‘very 
decided in finding fault with Latrobe for changes he has introduced.’ 

The interesting story of the National Capitol concerns us here only 
so far as it helps us to understand Bulfinch’s part in it. Those desir- 
ing a more complete account should consult the outstanding work 
of Glenn Brown, ‘The History of the United States Capitol’ (1900), 

[ 245 ] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


replete with evidence and illustrations collected during a decade of 
research, indebtedness to which is hereby acknowledged. 

Three men — William Thornton, Benjamin H. Latrobe, and Charles 
Bulfinch — were the architects. What Bulfinch did involves an under- 
standing that the general design of Thornton, who was not a pro- 
fessional architect, was followed, with certain changes, to the com- 
pletion of the building. Latrobe, who had been trained professionally, 
took charge in 1803, making some changes in the design and a large 
number of necessary detail plans. Bulfinch’s work, obvious and 
less original as he saw from the outset, was to complete the wings 
partially restored by Latrobe after the destruction by the British 
troops in 1814, and to construct the central portion for the most part 
from plans made by Latrobe, making such changes as were necessary. 
The bulk of the interior plans, however defective according to Bul- 
finch’s first judgment, must be executed; and while he did offer sug- 
gestions with respect to both fronts and the dome, the only essential 
exterior changes made by him were in modifying the design for the 
west central front and the dome. He also increased the size of the 
halls while decreasing the light wells. 

But though he did modify Latrobe’s design for the west front, 
which had been substituted for that of Thornton, with its semi-circular 
portico, he seems to have accepted Latrobe’s plan to make the east 
front the main approach, contrary to Thornton’s project to make the 
western the more imposing, overlooking the river and the city across 
the broad expanse toward the President’s House. The accomplish- 
ment of these two objects would have given him higher rank, but 
circumstances made this impossible. It seems obvious also that he 
could not remedy the faulty arrangement of the staircases complained 
of on his first inspection of the building. 

[ 246 ] 


THE NATIONAL CAPITOL AND A FEW DESIGNS 


That he gave consideration to these questions and made suggestions 
has been known, but anything so drastic as the omission of the rotunda 
and the dome has not been understood heretofore. Such, however, 
seems to have been the fact, judging from letters of John Trumbull to 
Bulfinch, but how definitely this is to be interpreted is not clear after 
reading the correspondence involved in the question. It appears that 
on January 19th, within two weeks after his arrival, he wrote to John 
Trumbull, then in New York, describing his perplexity incident to 
the diversity of opinions with respect to the Capitol and seeking 
artistic advice from his friend. This letter according to Trumbull was 
destroyed in a New York fire of 1836, but Trumbull’s reply in two 
letters, both bearing the date of January 28th, sets forth the essential 
points under consideration. In the first letter he wrote to Bulfinch, 
‘If you adopt a staircase similar to the city hall here, it will be im- 
perfect without a dome light.’ In the second letter, written at much 
length, describing the three plans he had thought wise to make and 
send in order that his ideas might be clear to Bulfinch, he continued, 
‘TI feel the deepest regret at the idea of abandoning the great circular 
room and dome. I have never seen paintings so advantageously placed 
in respect to light and space, as I think mine would be, in the pro- 
posed circular room, illuminated from above.’ 

It should be recalled that Congress in 1817 authorized Trumbull to 
paint four historical scenes at a cost of eight thousand dollars each, 
to be placed in the rotunda. It is natural that Trumbull should have 
clung to the idea of the rotunda, urging upon Bulfinch that it was in- 
volved in the earliest project for the Capitol and as drawn by Thorn- 
ton; and likewise rejecting Bulfinch’s suggestion of a saloon for the 
gallery of paintings because paintings therein hung would not be well 
lighted. 

[ 247 | 


CHARLES BULFINCH 
Bulfinch’s letter of April 17th, which Trumbull thought had been 


destroyed with that of January 19th, but which recently has come to 
light, adds important information never before published. Excusing 
his delay in replying by saying, ‘I have been ever since in such a 
state of uncertainty respecting the temper of Congress and the plans 
that would be adopted,’ he goes on to relate that he had ‘prepared 
drawings of the centre building with the rotunda, one with the floor 
entire, another with a circular opening in the floor of forty feet diam- 
eter forming a spacious gallery twenty-five feet wide all around, sup- 
ported by a circular colonnade, and another plan according to your 
idea.’ The Committee of Congress to whom these plans were sub- 
mitted insisted upon sufficient committee rooms, and, ‘moreover, that if 
these rooms could not be had in any other way, the rotunda should be 
cut up for that purpose. These threats put me upon my exertion, and 
I have contrived to make thirty committee rooms under a court room,’ 
etc. ‘I obtain these rooms in part by sinking the centre one story — 
it projects seventy feet from the wings, and, as the ground falls rapidly, 
this advantage may be easily gained, a glacis of turf on each side will 
fall to this level in face of the wings. ... I intend that this basement 
story, which will be eighteen feet high, shall be plain, of square blocks 
of granite prepared in Boston, with rusticated windows —the color of 
this stone white, rather with a bluish tint, will keep the line of the yel- 
low freestone above unbroken.’ 

In this letter he describes the model of the Capitol in wood, made 
by ‘an ingenious young man from Boston’ whom he found in Balti- 
more. This model was ‘four feet in length, and in correct proportions 
— it exhibits the different facades that have been prepared by Dr. 
Thornton and Mr. Latrobe, just a section of the rotunda and dome, 
and exhibits the different stories of the centre projection. I find that it 

[ 248 ] 


THE NATIONAL CAPITOL AND A FEW DESIGNS 


has been of material service — it has been seen by the President, and 
I believe nearly all the members of Congress, it conveys a correct 
notion of the design at a glance, and I believe has been satisfactory 
in convincing them that I understand what I am engaged in. This is 
certain, that one hundred thousand dollars are appropriated for com- 
mencing the centre this season. I intend to lay the foundation and 
build the walls of the basement.’ This ‘young man’ was Solomon 
Willard, then about thirty-five years old, who accomplished his task 
in about three weeks’ time. 

‘I am almost afraid to ask your opinion of this basement, because 
it was a measure of necessity and cannot be dispensed with, but if you 
can recollect any precedent that will warrant it, I will thank you to 
inform me even if [ lose by it all claim to originality. I know of several 
respectable buildings, particularly ...in England, which have one 
story more on one front than on the other, but do not recall any, 
where this story is not continued for the whole length.’ 

A pencilled sketch at the close of the letter exhibits a pediment 
above the entablature, the one essential difference from the drawing 
herein reproduced of the west front. This motive is similar to one 
which appears in one of Latrobe’s drawings, but was not executed. 
It is interesting to see Bulfinch’s reluctance to introduce the basement, 
particularly when we recall the somewhat similar change to the 
Massachusetts State House at variance to the original design and 
construction. 

We note that this letter makes no mention of any suggestion to 
abandon the rotunda, but only of the possibility of using it for com- 
mittee rooms, doubtless never seriously considered. In his reply of 
July 25th, Trumbull expressed his satisfaction that ‘your plan has— 
saved the grand room. It appears to me that you have extricated 

[ 249 ] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 








caphige 


s 


PENCIL DRAWING OF THE CAPITOL AT WASHINGTON FROM A LETTER OF 
CHARLES BULFINCH 


yourself happily from the multitude of contradictory projects.’ It is 
interesting to have this evidence of the friendship of these two men, 
which may be held to bear on the design for the Connecticut State 
House, since Trumbull speaks of an acquaintance extending over 
thirty years. 

The work on the wings progressed rapidly; in November, 1818, 
Bulfinch reports them well advanced, and in December of the year 
following, Congress held its first session in the new Hall of Representa- 
tives. The interior of the wings, dominated by Latrobe and showing 
the originality of his detail designs, particularly in the columns and 
mantels, offered little scope for the expression of Bulfinch’s artistic 
spirit. 

On April 20, 1818, Congress made the first appropriation for the 
central part of the Capitol in the sum of one hundred thousand 
dollars, and work went forward at once, so much so that Bulfinch in 
November reported considerable progress: and on December 9, 1822, 


he stated that the exterior was nearly completed. A number of old 
[ 250 ] 


THE NATIONAL CAPITOL AND A FEW DESIGNS 


engravings, woodcuts, and lithographs give a fairly good idea of the 
Capitol when first completed, the earliest being a drawing of the west 
front by Bulfinch and published as an engraving in 1821, and another 
engraving of the east front, possibly drawn by Bulfinch, published in 


1823. Both of these engravings appeared in the ‘ National Calendar.’ 


oe tne 


WEST On Tr SAPIEO 





BULFINCH DRAWING, PUBLISHED 1821 


There are two other Bulfinch drawings of the east front, one published 
as an engraving in 1826 and herein reproduced, and the other appear- 
ing in an engraving in ‘The Jackson Wreath’ (Philadelphia, 1829). 
The essential difference in the three engravings of the east front is 
the lower dome in the one published in 1823. 

The total cost of the central part of the Capitol, constructed en- 
tirely under Bulfinch’s supervision, was $957,647.36, which compares 
well with the total of $1,743,725.34 for the entire structure (exclusive 
of the amount expended for rebuilding after their partial destruction). 

In considering these sums with relation to the magnitude of the 
work, we should understand that the highest daily wage paid, which 
was during the years 1815-18, was $1.88 to carpenters, $2.25 to brick- 

25 i) 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


layers, and $2.75 to stonecutters. During the years 1819-22 the wage 
to none of these workmen exceeded $1.75. 

From the report of 1822 we learn ‘that about two thirds of the 
interior dome is built of stone and brick and the summit of wood’; and 
that “the whole is covered with a wooden dome of more lofty elevation, 
serving as a roof.’ The general understanding has been that Bulfinch 
was responsible for increasing the height of this dome over that sug- 
gested by Latrobe; indeed, Mr. Brown held that opinion as stated in 
his history. But this understanding does not accord with the facts, 
nor did the design selected from his drawings have the approval of his 
taste and judgment. 

The increase in height of the central dome was the cause of much 
criticism by Latrobe and shared by his son, who in 1842 wrote a 
letter, not altogether in the best spirit or manner, to the Secretary of 
the National Institute. This letter was read at a meeting of the 
society when the Reverend Stephen Greenleaf Bulfinch, a member, 
was present, who, resenting the unfairness of the criticism, forthwith 
gave to the members his version of the whole matter pertaining to the 
design for the dome, writing to his father full particulars. On receipt 
of the Secretary’s letter, Latrobe’s son, in a different temper, called on 
Bulfinch’s son and made full apology. To this incident we are indebted 
for an account probably not otherwise forthcoming. To Greenleaf, 


Bulfinch wrote: 


Boston, March 7, 1842 
I thank you for the strong interest expressed in your letter of the 
14 Feb’/, on the subject of Mr. Latrobe’s remarks on the Dome of the 
Capitol, as they might affect my professional reputation. 
From your sensibility on the subject, you may judge of the strong 
[ 252 ] 


9681 GHHSITANd SONIMVUC HONIATOAG 



































































































































THE NATIONAL CAPITOL AND A FEW DESIGNS 


desire which Mr. L.’s sons may feel, to exonerate their father from any 
mistakes that may have been made on that building. It was a great 
public work, designed and executed by various architects in succes- 
sion, and with long interruptions, that it is rather surprising that it 
presents so harmonious a whole. 

Your statement in my defence was so correct, that it appeared to me 
hardly necessary to add anything more. Your second letter, contain- 
ing the amende honorable of Mr. L. strengthens my resolution to let 
the matter rest. 

It was my intention, on receiving your first letter, to write a memoir 
upon the plan and construction of the Capitol to be presented to your 
society, but I felt that it would be a very tame performance unless 
accompanied by critical remarks which could hardly fail to give 
offence to some of the friends of Dr. Thornton, the original designer; 
of Mr. Hatfield, who was recommended from England as architect 
by Benjamin West and Colonel Trumbull, and was shortly super- 
seded by Mr. Latrobe — and especially if, in justice to myself, I related 
the alterations which I thought necessary to be made in that gentle- 
man’s plans, especially in the interior — and, indeed, if I attempted to 
throw the ponderosity of the dome upon the Cabinet of Mr. Monroe, 
what could I expect but a retort from J. Q. A. — from which may all 
good powers defend me; and so I gave up the intention, and will now 
give you a short history of the dome, to be confined to yourself, and 
such as in sober Judgment you may think proper to show it to. 

Upon my taking charge of the Capitol, I found a number of draw- 
ings of the manner in which it was intended to finish it, but it was very 
difficult to give the Building Committee any clear ideas upon the sub- 
ject, and absolutely impossible to convey the same to the more nu- 
merous body of the members of Congress. I accordingly proposed to 

[ 255 | 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


have a model made to show the building in its complete state. This 
was made and inspected by the President and all the members of 
Congress, and I believe had a favorable effect in convincing them that 
I understood what work I had to do, and that there was some prospect 
of the building being finished. But there was one universal remark, 
that the dome was too low, perhaps from a vague idea that there was 
something bold and picturesque in a lofty dome. As the work pro- 
ceeded, I prepared drawings for domes of different elevations, and, by 
way of comparison, one of a greater height than the one I should have 
preferred: they were laid before the Cabinet, and the loftiest one se- 
lected, and even a wish expressed that it might be raised higher in a 
Gothic form, but this was too inconsistent with the style of the build- 
ing to be at all thought of by me. 

Upon the ribs of the dome being boarded, I was so far dissatisfied 
as to propose to reduce it, stating that the saving in copper would 
meet all the expense; but our Commissioner was not a very compliant 
gentleman and rested upon the Cabinet decision, and, to avoid the 
altercation which had been so common formerly, I yielded the point. 
But I should be well pleased if, when the dome requires a thorough 
repair, which it may in ten or fifteen years, it should be reduced in 
height — not to Mr. Latrobe’s design, but about halfway between 
that and the present elevation. The foregoing will give my sons a full 
view of the circumstances under which some of my work was executed; 
but you will readily see that it is best not to make it too public. 


Architects expect criticism and must learn to bear it patiently. ... 


This clears up the question of the dome and discloses Bulfinch’s 
taste in the matter which we see was for a lower dome than the one 
executed. This is interesting when the dome is compared with that 

Pa20Ge 
























































DESIGN FOR ROTUNDA, CAPITOL, WASHINGTON 


From original drawing 





THE NATIONAL CAPITOL AND A FEW DESIGNS 


on the Massachusetts State House, but Bulfinch was not free to adopt 
the latter type of dome for the building he was charged with executing. 
The height of the dome was one hundred and forty-five feet from the 
ground, and the total length of the Capitol three hundred and fifty- 
one feet, four inches. 

Besides what has been set forth above, little of the interior of the 
central part of the Capitol can be attributed definitely to Bulfinch. 
The final outcome of the first three months of perplexity was to settle 
down upon the general plans already selected. Both the court room 
and the library were in Latrobe’s plans, and most of the finish had 
been determined. The only illustration found bearing on the interior 
is a drawing of the rotunda, now a part of the Bulfinch collection in 
the Architectural Library of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 
nology. This should be compared with the rotunda as finished in 
1824, with a diameter of ninety-six feet. 

One important recommendation made by Trumbull, that the ro- 
tunda be closed and kept free from dampness, was rejected, and in 
spite of his remonstrances his four pictures were hung there in 1824. 
But such was their condition in 1828 that Congress ordered their re- 
pair and the rotunda made free from dampness under Trumbull’s 
supervision. The dampness was due in large measure to the opening 
in the floor designed to give light to the proposed crypt for the body 
of George Washington, which subsequently was abandoned. This 
opening is mentioned in Bulfinch’s letter of April 17, 1818, to 
Trumbull, and it was closed under the latter’s direction. 

But, though there was little scope for original design, Bulfinch was 
well qualified by the work of the preceding years for his important 
position. Few men could have been found so well fitted in artistic 
appreciation and practical judgment. He knew what was good and 

[ 259 | 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


how to make the most of a difficult situation. Though not a domi- 
nantly forceful man, he was a gentleman with a certain degree of mas- 
tery both of artistic design and of principles of construction who could 
enter sympathetically into questions of practical execution. Under 
him the work progressed steadily, and, with increasing harmony 
among his associates, it gained in efficiency. 

Self-trained as he was, he was not untrained in structural prin- 
ciples. A case in point is found in his report of May 1, 1818, on the 
accident to the arch which was intended by Latrobe to carry the 
cupola over the ‘flat dome’ in the north wing. With reference to this, 
Mr. Brown, in his * History of the United States Capitol,’ relates that 
General Swift and Colonel Bomford, engineers, who had been in con- 
sultation, ‘agreed with Bulfinch that the arch would not bear any ad- 
ditional weight, and approved of his method of using a brick cone as a 
foundation for a cupola’; adding that, ‘although Latrobe thought the 
changes in the Senate made the arch necessary, Bulfinch seems to 
have contrived a simpler method.’ Latrobe attributed the failure of 
the arch to improper haunches or lack of loading, and to the error in 
not putting any hoop around the circular opening, which he had done 
uniformly in similar cases. He justifies the use of iron by quoting its 
use in the dome of Saint Paul’s and elsewhere. We have nothing by 
which to judge Bulfinch’s attitude on this method in dome construc- 
tion as exemplified in nearly all Renaissance domes, except the in- 
cident just related; but his mind here seems to have had recourse to 
fundamental principles rather than to makeshifts. His experience in 
this line of work was limited, and there is nothing to indicate that 
anything other than wood was considered for the construction of the 
actual dome over the rotunda. 

After the year 1826, or possibly a little earlier, Bulfinch was em- 

[ 260 | 


THE NATIONAL CAPITOL AND A FEW DESIGNS 


PUAN 
thy 


wt He 
PRINCIPAR PA eek 
at ‘the 







































































FLOOR PLAN, UNITED STATES CAPITOL 
ployed for the most part on the landscape work and designs for the 
steps and fence at the west. Here he had freer scope for his artistic 
spirit, and though we can judge what he accomplished only from old 
illustrations, we know that the results were worthy of praise. His 
treatment of the western approach was original, intended to give the 
best setting to the Capitol, not well placed. The work must have 
been well advanced at the beginning of 1828, as we find Mrs. 
Bulfinch writing to her son Greenleaf on January 14th, ‘We went 
to the Capitol where we admired the high finish of the rotunda, 
and the western steps and the circular terrace. ...On the top is a 
fine walk and it is as a whole much commended by strangers.’ 
Again, on December 20th of that year she writes, ‘Your father is well 
and quite satisfied with the manner his year’s work is spoken of by 
[ 261 | 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


members of Congress.” The work by this time was nearly or quite 
complete. 

The ‘circular terrace’ involved the original and more imposing 
approach from the west as planned by Thornton. This is shown in a 
drawing by Bulfinch dating not later than January, 1821, which also 


gives a fairly good idea of the completed west front except the dome, 





WEST STEPS, CAPITOL, WASHINGTON 


which was higher. Some suggestion of the beauty of the grounds with 

the two gate-houses and the iron fence at the foot of the hill, the walks 

and the steps ascending to the first or circular terrace, is found in a 

number of paintings by W. H. Bartlett, an English artist, published in 

London in 1839 and in the United States the following year, one of 

which is reproduced here. The merit for this artistic creation be- 
[=26201 


THE NATIONAL CAPITOL AND A FEW DESIGNS 


longs to Bulfinch. In the terrace was the Tripoli Naval Monument, 


later removed to Annapolis. 


We have but a blurred idea of the routine of these years. Bul- 
finch’s work was not hard, and, though beset with difficulties, evi- 
dently it was pleasant and interesting. Some estimates were necessary 
and a few short reports were made; beyond that his main task, espe- 
cially after the first year, was to interpret and direct. 

The spirit which dominated him under many limitations that 
tested at once his artistic nature and his professional powers, his tact 
in dealing with the Commissioner and those in authority or of in- 
fluence, and his sane balance in the whole situation are evidenced to 
us almost wholly in the precious letter to his son Greenleaf, given 
above. Valuable, indeed, would have been that proposed memoir, 
of which he speaks, abandoned at the thought of critical remarks and 
possible offence it might cause. Keenly we regret that the importance 
of this personal testimony did not outweigh the natural tendency of 
his character. The building of the Capitol lay in the past. Why raise 
again the many questions with their personal angles of taste and 
judgment? Alas, that something like this feeling prevailed! 

There stands the monument to these three men who gave to it 
according to their several abilities. It is not a perfect whole; there 
were errors of taste and structural principles. That the finished whole 
as it was when completed is better for what Bulfinch could and did 
accomplish is beyond dispute. Only in our speculative moods do we 
wonder what he would have done with a free hand in 1793, or in 
1803, had he been chosen then instead of Latrobe. 

Before the arrival of the family, Bulfinch writes on March 16th of 
attending “Mr. Monroe’s drawing room last Wednesday evening’; 

[ 263 ] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


“we met a good deal of splendor and gaiety, but I find it rather dull 
business, although the close of the evening was enlivened by some 
songs sung by a circle of ladies with their beaux, accompanying a 
piano. You know I am not very sentimental, but you will suppose I 
had some pleasant feelings when the last song was sung, “See from 
Ocean rising.”’ I confess it reminded me of home, although the scene 
around differed very materially from that of the humble parlour in 
Tremont Street. I hope we shall soon have another home and renew 
our domestic occupations and enjoyments together.’ 

This hope was soon realized in a house with gardens on Capitol 
Hill, but of this and the later homes very little is known except that in 
the last years the family resided on Sixth Street. There were family 
connections in Washington, and Bulfinch, by virtue of his position and 
personality, gained friends. Once, at least, they were invited by the 
President and Mrs. Monroe to dinner; and throughout the years 
New England friends were ever welcome; among whom, in the winter 
of 1826-27, was Harriet Vaughn, of Hallowell, Maine, daughter of 
Mrs. Bulfinch’s sister and Charles Vaughn, a girl of rare attractions 
who later married Jacob Abbott and became the mother of Lyman 
Abbott, for so many years honored preacher and editor. 

From the beginning Bulfinch was interested in the projected 
Unitarian Church in Washington and devoted much time to pro- 
moting the undertaking as well as designing the first building, which 
was dedicated June 9, 1822. Hampered by every consideration of 
economy the question of design was exceedingly difficult. Our know- 
ledge of the structure is confined almost entirely to the little book of 
plans, the most complete of the extant plans by Bulfinch, now in the 
Architectural Library of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 
and to an old photograph of the exterior taken before the church was 

[ 264 ] 


THE NATIONAL CAPITOL AND A FEW DESIGNS 





UNITARIAN CHURCH, WASHINGTON, 1822 


demolished in 1900, the Government having taken possession in 1880. 
The design, marked 3, was executed with some little detail changes 
and the building constructed of brick and plastered. The floor plan 
specifies fifty by seventy-two feet, with a porch only slightly less in 
width than the main house and a projecting tower around which is 
built a portico with a pediment in the Doric order. The tower treat- 
ment is not common, and is interesting; also the well-proportioned 
cupola in which the first bell in the city, for public purposes, was dedi- 
he265a1 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


cated on October 12th. The buttresses seen in the photograph are 
not shown on the design for the side elevation. It is interesting to 
find the same tower and portico treatment on churches at Newark, 
New Jersey, in Savannah and Augusta, Georgia, and at New Haven, 
Connecticut, all built prior to 1820, though the New Haven design 
was due to an architect of New York origin. 

There is no record or photograph of the interior, and we are obliged 
to assume that the church was finished as nearly as possible according 
to the designs in the collection. 
The pulpit end is plain in con- 
formity to economic necessity, 
and not of great interest. The 
pulpit, unlike others by Bulfinch, 
is suggestive of the drum-like 
type of the ‘Dutch Reformed’ 
Churches in New York State in 
Queen Anne’s time, while the 
decorative treatment back of it 
follows in simpler form that in 
some of Bulfinch’s churches. 
This church Bulfinch attended 
during the remainder of his resi- 
dence in Washington, and for a 


time later his son Stephen Green- 





leaf was the minister. 


CHURCH, PETERBORO, N.H., 1825 


There is a strong tradition 
amounting to conviction that the church in Peterboro, New Hamp- 
shire, built in 1825, was erected from Bulfinch’s plans. Hearing that 
Bulfinch had a plan which had been rejected by another church, a 
[ 266 | 







































































PLAN FOR PULPIT, UNITARIAN CHURCH, WASHINGTON 


From original drawing 





THE NATIONAL CAPITOL AND A FEW DESIGNS 


committee was sent to Boston and purchased it. This story is vouched 
for by Judge Jonathan Smith, to whom it was told by his father who 
was a member of the committee and twenty-two years old when the 
church was begun. It is, of course, possible that Bulfinch had such a 
plan which he left with some agent when he removed from Boston; 
but there is no record of any kind 
and the church is not included in 
Bulfinch’s list. The story is given 
here with some illustration of the 
building now standing because 
the structure is interesting, dis- 
playing one Bulfinch motive at 
least, that of the arched recesses 
in the walls for windows and 
doors. If this church was exe- 
cuted fairly close to a design by 
Bulfinch, it is in marked contrast 
with the Lancaster church which 
by another tradition, but with 
no evidence, had rejected the 


plan later used at Peterboro. The 





porch at Peterboro, ten feet deep, 
extends the full width of the 


building, the tower set upon the roof receiving its main support from 


INTERIOR, PETERBORO CHURCH 


the outer wall and the wall separating the porch from the audience 
room. This inner wall, which is ten inches thick, is carried only to the 
gallery floor, the tower weight at the ceiling level being carried by two 
fluted columns with simple moulded capitals. This same arrangement 
is found in the Old North Church, Hingham, Massachusetts. 

[ 269 | 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


The outer walls, of brick twelve inches thick, show evidence of 
strain in the middle of the porch end, but otherwise are in excellent 
condition. The interior is approximately fifty-one by fifty-five feet 
with delicately wrought gallery balustrade curving in toward the 
present organ end. The old pulpit end has been utterly and inhar- 
moniously altered; only the lectern column suggests the old pulpit it is 
reputed to have supported. On the whole, the church is a fine example 
of a closing period. Built at the very beginning of the so-called 
classic revival which soon became plain decadence, it remains to 
testify to a finer taste and to that integrity of workmanship which 


makes such buildings so full of interest and delight. 











MAINE STATE CAPITOL, 1829-31 


Another building, the design of which belongs to the Washington 
period, is the Maine State House at Augusta, the corner-stone of 
which was laid, with full Masonic ceremony, July 4, 1829. This 
structure is listed by Bulfinch and we have a plan for the dome 

[ 270 | 


THE NATIONAL CAPITOL AND A FEW DESIGNS 


marked, “This was executed.’ Strange to relate, this, together with 
some old pictures of the building occupied January 4, 1832, con- 
stitutes almost the whole story. When the building was remodelled 


and enlarged in 1909-10 only the Bulfinch front was preserved, the 





MAINE STATE HOUSE 


present lofty dome replacing the original one; and there was not 
enough interest in the interior, twice previously remodelled, to move 
any one to photograph it. 

Augusta was fixed upon in 1827 as the future capital of Maine, 
which had become a State in 1820, and in 1828 Bulfinch was asked to 
furnish a design which the Council adopted February 2, 1829, stating 
that the design by Bulfinch represented the Boston State House re- 

cla 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


duced in size. The building, constructed of Hallowell granite, was to 
be one hundred and fifty by fifty feet, though it measures one hun- 
dred and forty-six feet and has a plainer colonnaded portico than at 
Boston, eighty feet in extent and projecting fifteen feet, carrying a 
pediment. The cost, estimated not to exceed $80,000, totalled, with 


furnishings and work on the grounds, $139,000. The lines of the 


eo poi 
Atahe ler epee Ae Erg acer Fee 











_ DOME OF STATE HOUSE, AUGUSTA, MAINE 


From original drawing 


Massachusetts General Hospital dome were followed, though with a 
cupola constructed over the lantern. It may be noted that the pro- 
portion of portico to entire length of building, sometimes criticized at 
Boston, is repeated at Augusta, the Boston portico being ninety-six to 
one hundred and seventy-two feet, the total length of building. 
Though the criticism may be well-founded, Bulfinch had English 
models and designs usually considered good. 
[ 272 ] 


er eh 


THE NATIONAL CAPITOL AND A FEW DESIGNS 


The church at Quincy, Massachusetts, known as the ‘Stone 
Temple,’ dedicated November 12, 1828, is sometimes erroneously 
attributed to Bulfinch; but it was designed by Alexander Parris, who 
also designed Saint Paul’s Church, Boston. 

Record of Bulfinch’s work for the Government other than that on 
the Capitol is contained in a clause of an Act of Congress approved 
March 2, 1831, which reads, ‘For compensation to Charles Bulfinch, 
late architect of the Capitol, for his extra services in planning and 
superintending the building of the penitentiary at Washington, the 
jail in Alexandria, the additional buildings for the post-office and 
patent office, and for allowance for returning with his family to 
Boston, eleven hundred dollars.’ As the allowance for moving 
from Boston to Washington was five hundred dollars, the compensa- 
tion for professional services could not have exceeded six hundred 
dollars. 

We have only scant information of one of these buildings, that 
listed by Bulfinch as a “penitentiary prison,’ and probably constitut- 
ing the major part of the work. Erected under an Act of Congress 
May 20, 1826, at the foot of 43 Street at a cost of forty thousand 
dollars, it is described as a long structure of brick with two wings, one 
occupied as a warden’s house and the other as a hospital. That it 
was constructed under the direction of the Commissioner of Public 
Works may have caused delay in granting the extra compensation to 
which manifestly Bulfinch was entitled. No adequate illustration 
of this structure has been found: but it has been said that, when 
Mckim designed the War College erected on the site, he based his 
architectural motives on those he found there, though it does not 
appear that he knew the author was Bulfinch, whose work he greatly 
admired. 

Arak | 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


Naturally, we should expect to find other marks of Bulfinch’s 
influence on Washington architecture, especially of residences, but 
no record has been found. The only mention by Bulfinch is of the 
Unitarian Church and the penitentiary. His memorial to Congress 
under date of January 24, 1830, is of interest, not only upon the 
acoustic problem of Representatives Hall, but as showing the careful 
study he had given to the problem for a period of ten years. The 
faultiness of the design, which, as we have seen, was not due to Bul- 
finch, was recognized as soon as the Hall was occupied. Bulfinch 
applied himself to remedy the defect, recommending some form of 
flat ceiling, which also was the suggestion of William Strickland, an 
architect and engineer called in consultation. In 1829, Bulfinch pre- 
pared drawings which, with two drawings made later, were submitted 
with the memorial. Under the circumstances and conditions no solu- 
tion could be satisfactory, but the matter furnishes evidence of Bul- 
finch’s essentially scientific habit of mind. 

Though an Act of Congress, May 2, 1828, abolished the office of 
Architect of the Capitol, Bulfinch continued to serve till June 30th of 
the following year, and in some capacity not fully determined for a 
portion of the ensuing year. In his letter to President Jackson, June 
27, 1829, following a communication from the Commissioner of Public 
Buildings, informing him that by direction of the President the office 
of Architect of the Capitol would terminate June 30th, Bulfinch 
wrote, ‘There are several portions of the work in hand, and one of 
particular weight and massiveness, which require the superintendence 
of an architect.’ His request to be allowed to continue in his office for 
another quarter, during which time he could attend to work at the 
Navy Hospital at Norfolk, seems to have had the President’s ap- 
proval. We find him writing in August that the commission to Nor- 

[ 274 | 


THE NATIONAL CAPITOL AND A FEW DESIGNS 


folk had been executed, but no clear record has been found after that 
till his letter of June 3, 1830, in which he says, ‘I date from this place 
for the last time,’ adding, Washington has been ‘our pleasant and 
respectable home for twelve years and where we leave memorials. . . 


which we hope will long endure.’ 


CHAPTER XI 
LAST YEARS 
HERE is little more to be told. The few facts found in the 
Opes letters, including what is published in the ‘Life and 
Letters’ are quickly related. On their return from Washington, Mr. 
and Mrs. Bulfinch took lodgings in Bumstead Place, Boston, which at 
that time they found delightful with ample garden space. With sum- 
mers generally spent elsewhere, this was their home till 1839. Within 
a few weeks they went to Hallowell, Maine, to visit the Vaughns — 
Charles, who was connected with Bulfinch in the Franklin Place 
venture, and his wife, Mrs. Bulfinch’s sister. Here they remained till 
August, Bulfinch doubtless inspecting the work on the new State 
House at Augusta, only a few miles away, though there is no record 
of the fact nor of any connection with the work other than the design. 
Bulfinch seemed anxious to take up professional work, but nothing 
came to him and he settled gracefully into a serene old age. What he 
did in the leisurely years cannot be determined beyond the very short 
autobiographical sketch, hints of reading and study, but no more let- 
ters than in the active years. The Storers — George, and Bulfinch’s 
sister — who had shared their home with the Bulfinches after the 
Franklin Place disaster, boarded at Bumstead Place and had much in 
common with them in the same old delightful way, sharing in their 
interests and pleasures and on Sunday occupying the same pew in 
King’s Chapel. ‘We have kept ourselves quietly at home during the 
winter,’ writes Bulfinch in March, 1831; and a little later Mrs. Bul- 
finch writes: ‘We in our advanced age [they were then in their sixty- 
eighth and sixty-fourth years, respectively] are receiving from each 
Perks | 








Q 


CHARLES BULFINCH ABOUT 184 


Alvan Clark 


ae BY 


wing 


a 


From a dr 








‘an 


e 


LAST YEARS 


other’s society the best enjoyments of which we are permitted to 
partake — the united prayer, the confidential converse, the quiet 
readings, or the peaceful walks along our pleasant Common. I often 
think we are far more dependent upon each other now than in early 
life.’ 

In September, 1838, Mr. and Mrs. Bulfinch went to Washington, 
where they spent the winter very delightfully and were well received, 
Bulfinch giving some attention to repairs on the Unitarian Church; 
but though he wrote to his son Thomas in October commenting on 
various public buildings, there is no word on the Capitol which to see 
again must have given satisfaction. Doubtless there were memories 
of those past pleasant years, of work well done, of associations that 
enriched. In 1843, he wrote to a niece: ‘I love Washington, I passed 
there twelve of the happiest years of my life in pursuits congenial to 
my taste, and where my labors were well received. When walking 
through the Capitol and its grounds, you may well conceive the pleas- 
ure I felt at perceiving its progress from year to year.’ 

During these later years the family letters continued, a large 
number of which are published in the ‘Life and Letters,’ but there is 
almost nothing in them relating to the architect or the citizen. After 
the death of his wife, Bulfinch wrote more, of himself, his reading and 
his ideas; so that these last years reveal more of the man than all the 
other years combined. But only imagination can picture the life in 
summer or in Bumstead Place up to 1839, when in October Mr. and 
Mrs. Bulfinch were invited by their nieces, daughters of Bulfinch’s 
sister and Joseph Coolidge, to make their home with them in Bul- 
finch’s old birthplace in Bowdoin Square. 

This home is described in the ‘Life and Letters’ as ‘a three-story 
house of wood, a little withdrawn from the street, with a row of five 

| 2/9 | 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


Lombardy poplars in front, and a gate which opened on a white marble 
walk leading to the front door. We know its summer parlor with white 
panelling and French furniture, and its winter parlor or sitting-room 
with an arched recess on either side the fireplace. Through one of 
these, towards Chardon Street, a passage leads to the dining-room. 
The entry extends through the house, and the eastern door opens into 
a paved courtyard. In summer the open doors are sheltered by green 
blinds, and the rooms are scented after a shower by the sweet honey- 
suckle outside. Here on the roof of the stable is the great square 
pigeon-house, well known to the children. 

“We have a description of each room in the building, the many bed- 
chambers with their solid old furniture, the small library on the 
second floor, and the tall clock on the landing of the upper staircase. 
The two kitchens, even, are remembered in all their details, and we 
see the equipment required for cooking at their open fires, where in 
the chimneys were still the crane, the pothooks and trammels, and the 
iron wheel of the smoke-jack. Here, too, was the large screen lined 
with tin to protect the workers from the heat. From the paved yard a 
few steps in a grassy bank led down beneath an arched gateway to the 
garden. Here was the great horse-chestnut tree brought from abroad 
by one of the Apthorps, and at the end of the main walk a summer- 
house with the large pear-tree near it of family tradition, and other 
fruit-trees, and trellised grapevines, with all the variety of flowers 
that had given the architect’s mother so much delight.’ 

The charm of this home wings its way across the years, and we 
rejoice that the couple could come back to its sunshine and cheer to 
continue their life together amid congenial surroundings, made more 
comfortable and easy in mind by two substantial legacies received 
from English relatives. Here, in 1841, at the age of seventy-four, 

[ 280 ] 


ERE ; 
wae 





BOWDOIN SQUARE IN 1822, AS DRAWN FOR THE BOSTONIAN SOCIETY A HUNDRED YEARS LATER 


Bulfinch’s birthplace is the first house on the right 


‘. 





LAST YEARS 


‘Mrs. Bulfinch passed away all so quietly one night after one of the pleas- 
ant family gatherings. A woman of rare virtue, steadfast in faith, a 
mighty stay amid all the varied fortunes that came to her and her 
husband, of whom it may be truly said, ‘ Her children rise up, and call 
her blesséd; her husband also, and he praiseth her.’ 

The remaining years passed, consoled by friendly sympathy and a 
deep faith; interested and commenting on the affairs of the day — 
whether of the building of railroads, the New England boundary 
question, or the increasing radicalism in religion in the utterances of 
Theodore Parker. For the most part reading absorbed Bulfinch, and 
he writes of Combe’s “Travels in America,’ ‘very judicious and im- 
partial,’ and of Hallam’s ‘Literary History of the Fifteenth and 
Sixteenth Centuries,’ ‘a work of wonderful research and highly in- 
structive and entertaining.’ There was much of the scholar in Bul- 
finch; “you and I love a little Latin,’ he wrote one of his nieces in 
1843, and his interest in French evidently continued till the end. 

There is real charm in the few letters of the last years with their 
description of lectures, commenting at length on Greenough’s statue 
of Washington (which did not please him), noting events around him 
and in the world beyond — alive, mentally alert and growing, with 
interest keen and sane. His life lay within the shadow with no bitter- 
ness or remorse, in quietness and fineness of soul. To the last he was 
constructive, tolerant, humble, believing the best of life and hu- 
manity, open-minded to the truth, holding firm to a simple faith in 
life — now and forever. 

In all those last fourteen years Bulfinch made no design, performed 
no act of public service, yet his mind was dynamic, engaged with the 
forces and principles that had moved the past and were to move the 
future. His bodily vigor declined, impairing his physical activity, but 

[283 5] 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


ser d 
SE A OS 


1 | ae 
LO ns 


Ll 
oe 
ied 
Co 
Co 
ae 
om 
ose 
Seu) 





PLATE IN CRUNDEN’S BOOK OWNED AND USED BY BULFINCH 


the man moved on. To the end he was architect and citizen in a world 
and life that those virtues glorify. On April 15, 1844, as the old family 
clock on the staircase in the house where he was born struck twelve, 
his spirit was released, and on the 17th the funeral services were held 
in King’s Chapel. 

So passed the first born American architect as well as a gentleman 
of the old school. What he achieved is due entirely to an artistic spirit 
and to years of patient work. We may only conjecture what most 

[ 284 ] 


LAST YEARS 


interested him in Europe, though that influence, especially in Eng- 
land, was great; and no review of the books he used will disclose the 
method of his designs. 

The books in his possession were the best of his time, suggest- 
ing the student grounding himself as far as possible in the art which 
impelled him, foremost of which was the 1785 edition of Crunden’s 
‘Original Designs’ (London, 1767), containing some much-handled 
plates which suggest motives in the Massachusetts State House; and 
William Thomas’s ‘Original Designs in Architecture’ (London, 1783), 
which had much influence upon Bulfinch, particularly noticeable in 
the design for the Massachusetts General Hospital. To these may be 
added Sir J. Soane’s ‘Designs in Architecture’ (London, 1778), show- 











Tre eee 






































DESIGN BY WILLIAM THOMAS, LONDON, 1783, SUGGESTING THE 
MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL 


[ 285 | 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


ing various country seats; a book of Palladio’s (Venice, 1581), re- 


printed in London in 1759; and ‘A Dissertation on the Construction 
and Properties of Arches,’ by G. A. Atwood (London, 1801). This 


book on arches contains three full pages of notes by Bulfinch showing 


Chart 


wt ae ye 38 


Sanka Peabibahek LI Ws 





PLAN AND ELEVATION FROM PLAW, 
. LONDON, 1795 


careful study of the subject and 
citing French builders. 

It is interesting to observe that 
of the fifteen or more foreign 
printed books on architecture in 
his possession, not one was of 
the kind in the hands of Ameri- 
can builders, such as Ware, Pain, 
Langley, and others — mainly 
concerned with the ‘five orders’ 
and details. Nor does it ap- 


pear that Bulfinch owned any 


of the rather numerous Ameri- 


can printed books except a copy 
of Asher Benjamin’s ‘Practice 
of Architecture’ (Boston, 1833), 
presented to him ‘with the re- 
spects of the author.’ His under- 


standing of the principles of con- 


struction was the result of careful study, and asa designer he was more 


than a copyist. Whatever the influence of other designs in his more 


important work, the source of practically all of which can be traced, 


there is a handling that shows mastery of any problem in hand. 


So, too, there is no evidence in what he did of the dominance of any 


school or individual. Peter Harrison’s influence upon Bulfinch has 
[ 286 ] 


LAST YEARS 


been called self-evident, and this may seem possible if one compare 
only the Brick Market, Newport, as it was about 1830 with certain 
Bulfinch motives; but there is nothing to show that Bulfinch ever 
visited Newport; and while Harrison’s King’s Chapel, Boston, and 
Christ Church, Cambridge, so familiar to him, must have appealed to 
his artistic spirit, they have little in common with what he did. 

Not even of Wren can we say that the influence was marked. Only 
two Bulfinch church interiors bear direct witness to Wren in the 
domical motive of Saint Stephen’s, Walbrook. Wren’s influence upon 
American architecture is considerable, but equally important and 
more direct, especially on churches, is that of James Gibbs to whom 
little credit has been given. The history of our architecture involves 
more fundamental sources than these two men, to whom we are much 
indebted, and this is true of Bulfinch in whose work the motives of 
Wren and Gibbs are not marked. Bulfinch’s power lay in an artistic 
spirit that helped him to select and adapt, and on the whole he cannot 
be measured by his executed designs, conditioned as he was by local 
limitations. 

The influence that moved Bulfinch was what we call Renaissance, 
but there are hints that upon his vision came a broader and more 
fundamental background, sometimes missed by architects. He could 
do little more than follow what was familiar to architects and builders 
of his day, yet with wider opportunity his was a nature to respond to 
what he saw of a noble past. In a copy of ‘Essays on Gothie Archi- 
tecture’ (London, 1800), we find over two pages of notes on Saxon 
architecture, the influence of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the 
Saracens in Spain, ete., with a water-color sketch showing the pointed 
arch in the East. When these notes and the sketch were made cannot 
be determined, but they suggest his wide interest and hint the question 

| 287 | 


CHARLES BULFINCH 


4) 
ti 
fi 
< 


ye 
BER # 





SKETCH BY BULFINCH IN A COPY OF ‘ESSAYS ON GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE’ 


of architectural origins which to-day is answered in the increasing 
light of facts; and we feel that Bulfinch would have delighted in the 
great motives flooding with new force from that wonderful East. 

As a citizen and public servant he was a product of his time, God- 
fearing, thorough, just; and his achievement was out of all proportion 
to the inadequate story here written. But Charles Bulfinch, architect 
and citizen, will find increasing recognition by those who love the 
beautiful and the true and that public spirit expressed in integrity and 


service. 


THE END 








INDEX 





Abbott, Jacob, 264. Boston Common, 12, 188, 195, 204. 
Abbott, Lyman, 264. Boston Court-House, 138, 145, 209. 
Adam Brothers, 56, 160, 221. Boston Library Society, 71. 
Adams, John, 42, 109, 127. Boston Light, 12. 
Adams, John Quincy, 60, 243, 255. Boston Marine Insurance Company, 137. 
Adams, Samuel, Sr., 215. Boston Neck, 197. 
Adams, Samuel, 42, 68. Boston Society of Architects, 89, 216. 
Almshouse, Boston, 98-99, 217. Bostonian Society, 175, 176. 
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 42. Bowditch, N.I., 41. 
Amory, Rufus G., 104. Bowdoin Square, 1, 70, 176, 279. 
Amory, Thomas, house, 184. Bowen, Samuel, 60. 
Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, 124. Brattle Street Church, 11, 33, 34. 
Andover Theological School, 234. British Coffee House, 135. 
Appleton, Samuel, 221. Broad Street, 104, 107, 195. 
Apthorp, Rev. East, 2. Brown, Abram English, History of Faneuil Hall, 
Apthorp, Frances, 27. 123. 
Apthorp, George, 5. Brown, Glenn, History of the United States Capitol, 
Apthorp, Hannah, 24. 245, 252, 260. 
Apthorp, John, 29. Brown, Mather, 8, 60. 
Apthorp, Susan, 2. Brown, Samuel, 60, 98. 
Arlington, Massachusetts, Calvary Methodist | Bulfinch, Adino, 1. 
Church, 138. Bulfinch, Anna, 27. 
Armstrong house, 176. Bulfinch, Charles, birth and family, 1-2; autobio- 
Augusta, Maine, First Church, 135. graphical sketch, 2-6; European trip, 6-11; Bos- 
7 ton and the new era, 12-15; part in the ‘Colum- 
Baltimore mob, 193. bia’ expedition, 16-20; marriage, 24, to New 
Bank of England, 72. York and Philadelphia, 27-29; residence in Marl- 
Banner, Peter, 156, 168, 209. borough Street, 29-31, 36; removal, 37; elected 
Barrell, Joseph, 5, 16, 19, 28, 41, 42, 56; mansion, selectman, 38; prominent in establishing theatre, 
147-51, 232. 40, 59-63; elected fellow, American Academy of 
Bartlett, William, 234. Arts and Sciences, 42; services to town, 64; one of 
Bartlett, W. H., 262. Committee on new State House, 67-68; bank- 
Bartol, Elizabeth, 183. rupt, 68-75; Chairman, Board of Selectmen, 94- 
Bartol, Rev. George M., D.D., 227, 228. : 117, 191-208; superintendent of police, 96; in- 
Beacon Hill, 12, 32, 99, 103, 104, 154. crease in salary, 112; member, Massachusetts 
Beacon Hill Monument, 31, 93, 154. Historical Society, 109; in jail, 114; services to 
Beacon Street, houses on, 187, 221. Catholics of Boston, 125; plan for development 
Belfast, Maine, First Church, 135. of Beacon Hill, 154; residence in Bulfinch Street, 
Belknap, Rev. Jeremy, ols 63. 172-75; in War of 1812, 193-95; many and ar- 
Benjamin, Asher, 167, 168, 209. duous duties as Chairman of Board, 196; fails 
Bingham house, Philadelphia, 27, 160. of reélection and vindication, 198; address at 
Blackburn, Joseph, 2. town meeting, 199-201; salary as Chairman, 202; 
Bordeaux, France, 8. prominent part in entertaining President Mon- 


Boston, Bulfinch’s early account of, 4-5; in 1787, roe, 203-05; presides for last time at Board meet- 


11-15; selectmen, 38, 94 ff., 191 ff.; education, 
39, 98, 202, 206; trade and commerce, 43, 94, 109, 
191, 194; banking, 43, 135; West Boston bridge, 
64; the poor, 96; health, 96; courts, 96, 202, 207; 
finance, 97, 113, 200, 201, 207; land expansion, 
99: South, 100, 204; South Boston bridge, 100; 
War of 1812, 191-95. 

Boston Bank, 135, 136. 


ing, 205; summary of services to town, 206-08; 
removal to Washington, D.C., and architect of 
Capitol, 241; Bulfinch’s narration of, 241-45; 
salary, 243; first Sunday in city, 245; work on the 
Capitol building, 244-60; rotunda, 247, 249, 259; 
plans, 249, 251; central dome, 246, 247, 252-59; 
Bulfinch-Trumbull letters, 247-50; knowledge 
of structural principles, 260; work on Capitol 


[ 291 ] 


INDEX 


grounds, 260-63; home and social life, 263-64; 
other work for the Government, 273-75; de- 
parture for Boston, 275; at Bumstead Place, 276; 
visit to Washington, 279; return to birthplace, 
Bowdoin Square, 279; reading and letters, 283; 
his death, 284; his books, 285-86; sources of his 
inspiration, 286-88. 

Bulfinch, Mrs. Charles, 11, 24, 27, 56, 70, 72, 115, 
276, 283. 

Bulfinch, Elizabeth, 41. 

Bulfinch, Ellen, 89, 90. 

Bulfinch, Madam, 142. 

Bulfinch, Rev. Stephen G., 90, 216, 252. 

Bulfinch, Susan, 36. 

Bulfinch, Thomas, Sr., 1. 

Bulfinch, Thomas, Jr., 1, 16, 19. 

Bulfinch Harbor, 19. 

Bulfinch Place, 171-72, 175, 176. 

Bulfinch Place, No. 8, 172-76. 

Bulfinch Street, 171, 175, 176. 

Bunker Hill, battle of, 5. 

Bunker Hill Monument Association, 32. 

Burrell, Ellen M., 80. 


Cabot, Samuel, 40, 153. 

Caldwell, John, 50. 

Cambridge, Christ Church, 2, 287. 

Cambridge, First Church, 212. 

Cambridge, East, Court-House, 145, 146; jail, 146. 

Canner, Rev. Dr., 7. 

Canton, 19, 20. 

Capitol, Washington. See Washington. 

Carleton, Osgood, 103, 172. 

Carrol, John, Bishop, 126, 127. 

Castine, Maine, Church, 132. 

Castle Island, 194. 

Catholics, Boston, 125-28. : 

Chamberlain, Allen, Beacon Hill, 154. 

Chambers, William, 91. 

Channing, W. E., Church, 205. 

Chardon house, 176. 

Charles River, 115, 148, 188. 

Charlestown Bridge, 12, 64, 149. 

Charlestown, First Church, 131. 

Charlestown, Navy Yard, Commandant’s house, 
157. 

Chesapeake, frigate, 110. 

Chester, John, 50, 52, 54. 

Chestnut Street, houses on, 179-83. 

Cheverus, Rev. John, first Catholic Bishop, Boston, 
126, 128. 

China, 16, 19. 

Christ Church, Boston, 11, 33, 132, 205. 

Church of the Holy Sepulchre, 287. 

Clap, or Clapp, William, 61, 171, 172. 

Clark-Frankland house, 11. 

Clarke, William B., 175. 

Cleveland, William, 231, 232. 





Coffin, Peleg, 121. 

Coleman, Judith, 1. 

Coleridge, Lord, 90. 

Colonnade Row, 147, 167, 187, 188. 
Columbia River, 20. 

Columbia, ship, 16, 19, 20; expedition, 16-20. 
Combe’s Travels in America, 283. 
Connecticut Historical Society, 44. 
Connecticut State House, 44-55, 90, 91, 92, 250. 
Coolidge, Joseph, Sr., 41, 70; mansion, 41. 
Coolidge, Joseph, Jr., 41, 70, 241. 

Copley, John Singleton, 8, 151, 152, 183, 218. 
Copley lands, 99, 152, 153, 154. 

Cotting, Uriah, 104; house, 218, 221. 

Crafts house, Roxbury, 156, 168. 

Cummings, Charles A., 89. 


Davis, Judge, 5. 

Dawes, Thomas, 67, 98, 100, 103. 
Dedham Court-House, 118. 

Deer Island, building, 64. 
Dexter, Samuel, 5, 111. 

Dickens, Charles, 121. 

Dillaway, Thomas C., 104. 


Edinburgh University, 1. 

Eliot, Samuel A., 124. 

England, 8. 

England, Bank of, 72. 

Essex Bank, Salem, Massachusetts, 137. 
Everett, Edward, 55, 188. 

Exchange Coffee House, 195, 204, 205. 


Faneuil Hall, 11, 111, 113, 114, 122-25, 193. 

Faneuil, Peter, house, 11, 114. 

Fay House, 154-56. 

Federal Hall, New York, 29. 

Federal Street Church, 31, 63, 141. 

Fisher, Jacob, 231-32. 

Flucker, Lucy, 151. 

Flucker, Thomas, 151, 152. 

Franklin, Benjamin, 38, 59. 

Franklin Place, 56-59, 63, 68-69, 75, 93, 167, 187; 
occupiers of houses in, 75. 

Freeman, Rev. James, 2. 

Frothingham’s History of Charlestown, 131. 


Gibbs, James, 90, 287. 

Gilman, Mary, 100. 

Gore, Christopher, 110, 193; mansion, 156. 
Gray’s Harbor, 20. 

Gray, Robert, 16, 19, 20. 

Green, John H., 215, 217, 231. 

Greenleaf, Stephen, 24. 


Hallam’s Literary History, 283. 
Hallowell, Maine, Old South Church, 132. 
Halsey, Jeremiah, 44, 54, 55. 


[e2G2a| 


INDEX 


Hancock, Cape, 20. 

Hancock, Ebenezer, 104. 

Hancock, Gov. John, 29. 

Hancock, John, 104. 

Hancock house, 11. 

Handel and Haydn Society, 141. 

Harrison, Peter, 286. 

Hartford, Connecticut, 44, 50. 

Hartford Convention, 111, 192, 193-94. 

Hartford Courant, 51. 

Harvard College, 1, 5, 205, 237. 

Hawkins Street School, 118, 210. 

Hersey, Thomas, 232. 

Hichborn, Benjamin, 100. 

Higginson, Stephen, 62. 

Higginson, Stephen, Jr., 176. 

Hingham, Massachusetts, 232; North Church, 
269. 

Hinckly, David, house, 218. 

Hollis Street Church, 20, 23, 24. 

Holy Cross Church, 125-28, 131. 

Hooker, Noadiah, 50. 

Houghton Mifflin Company, 168. 

Howard, Rev. B., 5. 

Howard, Jonathan, 171. 

Hughes, James, 40. 

Huguenot Church, Boston, 126. 

Humphreys, David, 179. 

Hunnewell, Jonathan, 121. 

Hutchinson house, 11. 


India Wharf, 104-08. 


Jackson, Andrew, President, 274. 
Jackson, Henry, 60, 152. 

Jay Treaty, 64, 69, 70, 72. 
Jefferson, Thomas, 16, 109, 151. 
Jews in Boston, 202. 

Jones, Inigo, 90. 

Jones, J. C., 111. 

Jones, Paul, 16. 

Joy, Benjamin, 99, 115, 152, 158. 
Joy, Levi, 104. 


Kendrick, John, 16, 19. 

Kimball, Fiske, American Domestic Architecture, 
156 n. 

King’s Chapel, 2, 11, 33, 109, 195; communion 
plate, 7, 276, 287. 

Kirkland, John Thornton, 205. 

Knox, Henry, house, 151-52, 158. 


Lafayette, Marquis de, 6, 180. 

Lancaster, Massachusetts, Church, 217, 222-32, 
269. 

Lane, Commissioner, United States Capitol, 242, 
Q44., 

Latin School, 39, 145; third building, 209. 





Latrobe, Benjamin H., 242, 243, 244, 246, 248, 252, 
255, 256, 260. 

Ledyard, John, 16. 

Lee, William, 242, 243. 

Leffingwell, John, 55. 

Leopard, frigate, 110. 

Leverett Street jail, 218. 

Lexington fight, 5. 

Infe and Letters, 30, 62, 89, 207, 241, 276, 279. 

Louisiana Purchase, 112. 

Lowell, Francis C., 104. 

Lyman, Theodore, 72, 111, 193. 


McIntire, Samuel, 138, 156, 167, 222, 232. 

Mackenzie, Alexander, 19. 

McKim, Charles F., 273. 

McLean, John, 64, 237. 

McLean Hospital, 64, 148, 233, 237. 

Madison, James, 191. 

Maine State House, 92, 98, 270-72. 

Malbone, Edward Greene, 11. 

Manufacturers and Mechanics Bank, 135. 

Marlborough Street, 29-30. 

Mason, Jonathan, 72, 99, 100, 111, 115; house, 152- 
53; 154, 179. 

Mason Street School, 210. 

Massachusetts, 12, 15, 27. 

Massachusetts Bank, 43, 135, 137. 

Massachusetts General Hospital, 64, 211, 233, 237- 
40. 

Massachusetts Historical Society, 16, 59, 109, 150, 
168. 

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Architec- 
tural Library, 259, 264. 

Massachusetts Magazine, 23, 29. 

Massachusetts Society for the Aid of Immigrants, 
ion 

Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture, 
42. 

Massachusetts State House, 20, 44, 48, 53, 60, 67, 

75-93, 249, 259. 

Massachusetts State Prison, 120-22. 

Matignon, Rev. Francis A., 126. 

Middlecot Street, 37, 71, 172. 

Mill Pond, 12, 100, 103-04. 

Minot, George B., 98. 

Monroe, James, visit to Boston, 203-05, 212; 242, 

243, 255, 264. 

Morgan, John, 50, 53. 

Morris, Robert, 16. 

Morton, Perez, 40, 60, 89, 136. 

Morton house, Roxbury, 156. 

Mount Vernon Street, houses on, 176-79, 183. 








Nantes, 7. 

Neck lands, 100, 113. 

Newburyport, Massachusetts, Court-House, 119. 
New England Marine Insurance Company, 137. 





[ 293 | 


INDEX 


New North Church, 125, 131, 225, 226. 
New South Church, 138, 212-17. 

New York City, 27, 28. 

Nickerson, Samuel, 158. 

Nimes, 8. 

Nootka, ship, 16. 

Norfolk, Virginia, citizens protest, 110. 


Oakley, summer house of Harrison Gray Otis, 156. 

Old South Church, 11, 33. 

Otis, Harrison Gray, 60, 64, 72, 99, 100, 104, 115, 
152, 153, 154, 156; first house, 159-63; second 
house, 163-64, 167, 176, 187; third house, 164, 
167, 179; Hartford Convention, 193; address to 
President Monroe, 204. 


Paine, Judge, 5. 

Parker, Theodore, 283. 

Parkman, Samuel, 19, 125, 141, 176, 193. 

Park Place (now Street) houses, Nos. 1-4, 147, 167, 
168-71, 183. 

Park Street Church, 141, 168. 

Parris, Alexander, 209, 273. 

Peck, John, 100. 

Perkins, Thomas, house, 184. 

Perkins, Thomas H., 111. 

Peterboro, New Hampshire, Church, 266, 269-70. 

Philadelphia, 27, 233. 

Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, 237. 

Phillips, John, house, 184. 

Phillips, William, 237. 

Phillips, Zachariah, 154. 

Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Church, 32-36, 125, 142. 

Porter. Rev. Edward G., 150. 

Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Academy, 146. 

Pratt, Bela, 228. 

Prince, James, 40. 

Providence, First Congregational Church, 23, 215, 
217, 231; First Baptist Church, 33. 

Province House, 11, 67. : 


Quincy, Massachusetts, Stone Temple, 273. 
Quincy, Josiah, 112, 201, 202, 207. 


Revere, Paul, 60, 68, 80, 93; bell at Lancaster 225. 
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 8. 

Rice, Henry, 172, 175. 

Robbins, Edward Hutchinson, 68, 121. 

Roe, Alfred S., 90. 

Royal Exchange, London, 125. 

Russell, Joseph, 40, 60. 

Russell, Nathaniel P., 221. 


Saint Mary-le-Bow, 2. 

Saint Paul’s Church, Boston, 209. 

Saint Paul’s Church, London, 23. 

Saint Peter’s, Rome, 8. 

Saint Stephen’s Church, Boston, 125, 131. 





Saint Stephen’s Church, Walbrook, London, 23, 
228. 

Salem, Massachusetts, 221, 222, 232. 

Salem Almshouse, 222. 

Sargent, Peter, 11. 

Scollay, William, 59, 63, 69, 71, 72, 154. 

Scripps-Booth house, 176, 221. 

Sears, David, 64, 193, 218. 

Seymour, Thomas, 50. 

Shays’s Rebellion, 20. 

Smibert, John, Faneuil Hall, 122. 

Smith, Abiel, 202, 203. 

Smith, Jonathan, 269. 

Society for the Preservation of New England An- 
tiquities, 159. : 

Somerset House, London, 91. 

Southack Court, 37, 71, 172, 175. 

Sparks, Jared, sideboard and portrait of Mrs. 
Sparks, 212. 

Spear, Samuel, 104. 

State House, old, Boston, 11, 67, 76, 85, 113, 195. 

Stearns, Eli, 231. 

Storer, George, 27, 69, 71, 172, 276. 

Stoughton, Don Juan, 126-27, 128. 

Strickland, William, 274. 

Stuart, Gilbert, 125, 152, 183. 

Suffolk Insurance Company, 137. 

Sullivan, William, 111. 

Swan, Mrs. James, 99, 152; Dorchester house, 156; 
Chestnut Street, 180. 


Taunton, Massachusetts, Church, 32-36, 125, 142. 

Thayer, Rev. John, 126. 

Thayer, Rey. Nathaniel, 225, 228. 

Theatre in Philadelphia, 27; in Boston, 28, 40, 59- 
61, 63. 

Thomas, Isaiah, 119. 

Thomas, Original Designs in Architecture, 156. 

Thornton, William, 245, 246, 247, 248, 255, 262. 

Thurston house, 154. 

Ticknor house, 184. 

Touro, Abraham, 202. 

Tower, Rufus, 104. 

Trumbull, John, 50, 51, 54. 

Trumbull-Bulfinch letters, 247-50, 255, 259. 

Tuckerman, Edward, Jr., 218. - 

Tudor, William, 100. 


Union Bank, 135, 136. 
United States Branch Bank, Boston, 43, 135. 
University Hall, Harvard College, 138, 210-12, 240. 


Vancouver, George, 19. 

Vaughn, Charles, 42, 56, 63, 68, 71, 72, 132, 148, 
264, 276. 

Vaughn, Harriet, 264. 


Ward, Andrew, 54. 


[ 294 ] 


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